Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu has advocated that Nigeria dedicate 26 percent of its annual budget to funding education in order to revamp the sector and accelerate Nigeria’s quest for national development.
Senator Ekweremadu made the call at the 17th and 18th convocation ceremony of the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, over the weekend where he also bagged an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
Ekweremadu said Nigeria could hardly make the desired developmental leaps so long as tertiary and other levels of education continued to have low funding, noting that in the contemporary knowledge-driven world economy, only nations which put their educational sector on a strong footing stood any chances of achieving or sustaining socio-economic prosperity.
“We need education that optimises the ingenuity of our people and galvanises our collective resources for national development,” he said, stressing that Nigeria remained in dire need of that calibre of education that would provide practical answers to her numerous challenges as a nation and transform her students from future armies of job-seeking graduates to job creators.
The deputy president of Senate said quality, free and compulsory basic education had become an imperative because unless the supply chain of the tertiary educational system, namely primary and secondary education, churned out pupils who are well prepared for independent and vocational life as well as higher academic pursuits, the tertiary institutions themselves would continue to roll out graduates who are ill-equipped for the challenges of personal survival and national development.
He said the nation could afford free or at least a highly affordable quality tertiary education if concerted steps were taken to cut down on waste, plug the holes of corruption, and get the nation’s priorities right.
“If we cannot do more, let us at least begin by ensuring that education gets at least 26 percent of our budgets, being the benchmark set by UNESCO for nations willing to take educational development beyond the rhetoric,” he stressed.
?