Human Development Initiative (HDI) has urged the federal and state governments in Nigeria to increase the budgetary allocations they earmark for education.

HDI Programme Manager, Johnson Ibidapo, gave the advice during a sensitisation programme for basic education stakeholders in Ojo area of Lagos.

The President Muhammadu Buhari administration budgeted N742.5 billion for education in the 2021 Appropriation Bill, which is 5.6 percent of the proposed N13.08 trillion budget and the lowest allocated to education in ten years, despite the challenges in Nigeria’s education sector.

‘The government needs to do more in terms of funding Universal Basic Education (UBE) to get more out-of-school children back to school’, he said

‘If these out of school children are not giving the opportunity to go to school, they will become hoodlums and problem to society.

‘The Federal government must improve and increase the allocation for education to at least 15 per cent to improve the sector’.

He also advised the 36 state governments against relying on the intervention of the federal government in funding their education sector.

‘UBE fund has now become the major source of funding basic education in many states in Nigeria’, he said.

‘This is wrong because education is on the concurrent list, which means that both federal and state can legislate on it differently.

‘States should source for an alternative way of funding to develop education in their states’.

Source: Naija247News

Photo source: Femi Adesina