Architect Sunny Echono, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, is advocating for increased funding for the sector for any meaningful development to be achieved in the sector.
Echono stated this in Abuja when he received the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education and Services, who visited his office on an oversight function.
He said that due to the significant role of education in the development of the country, it is pertinent that the National Assembly and other relevant agencies do an overhaul of its budgeting parameters and consider improving allocations to the education sector.
The Permanent Secretary specifically stated that the Eighty-Four Billion, Seven Hundred and Twenty-Eight Million, Five Hundred and Twenty-Nine Thousand, Five Hundred and Seventy-Two Hundred Naira (N84,728,529,572) the sector received in the 2020 Appropriation Act, cannot adequately take care of the projects and challenges of the sector.
He subsequently appealed for more budgetary allocations in the 2021 budget, if the country is to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, (SDGs), by 2030.
Echono pointed out that presently the nation’s tertiary institutions are facing lots of challenges, including shortage of lecture theatres, hostel accommodation, obsolete laboratories and library facilities as well as inadequate security infrastructure.
He stressed that these challenges have hindered proper assimilation of knowledge that the institutions are supposed to impart to students.
However, Echono said that despite inadequate funding, a lot has still been achieved in the development of the nation’s tertiary institutions.
He disclosed that to reduce or end strikes in the nation’s institutions, arrangements are ongoing to constitute visitation panels to deal with some of the challenges facing the universities with a view to finding lasting solutions to them.
Echono also revealed that the sum of Eighty-Six Billion Naira (N86,000,000,000) has been paid to members of academic unions of the tertiary institutions as earned academic allowances between 2013 to 2019 financial years.
He added that approval has been granted for a pension fund administrator to handle the pension and gratuities of staff of Nigerian universities.
He also stated that the non-completion of National library headquarters complex is another challenge in the sector.
In his remarks, Hon. Aminu Suleiman, Chairman of the House Committee on Tertiary Education and Services and leader of the delegation said the visit was not for fault finding but to build synergy with the Ministry on enhancing better service delivery in the nation’s tertiary institutions, within its limited resources.
