Vanguard Editorial: A Commendable Budget Proposal On Education By Enugu Government

In 2015, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, Member States agreed on a minimum educational funding benchmark of 4 to 6 per cent of the GDP, or 15 to 20 per cent of public expenditure. This is in recognition of the place of human capital development in the overall development of any nation.

Unfortunately, most of the countries are far from reaching that threshold. In Nigeria, the educational system has almost collapsed, gasping for breath over poor funding. The result is that public schools have almost crumbled, while private schools, most of which are poorly equipped and ill-regulated, have taken over the education space.

Poor funding, corruption, poor governance, outdated curriculum, lack of teaching aids and instructional materials, poor motivation of the workforce, among other problems bedeviling the education sector, have resulted in poor human capital development and grievous brain drain – not only of citizens who travel overseas for studies but never bother to return home, but also well-experienced manpower who are leaving the country in droves in search of greener pastures. 

The truth is that good education costs money; lip service can never turn around the system. It was therefore a cheery news from Enugu State when the Governor, Dr. Peter Mbah, presented the 2024 budget estimates to the State House of Assembly. In the budget proposal, the administration proposes to spend N207.8bn on the Economic Sector, while the Social Sector gets the sum of N182.9bn.

Interestingly, education is well-prioritised and will receive the sum of N134.9bn, which represents a whooping 73.6 per cent of the budgetary provisions for the Social Sector, and 33 per cent of the entire budget of N521.5bn.

This, according to the governor, will enable the administration reinvent education in the state through the construction of 260 smart schools across the 260 electoral wards, as well as reposition senior secondary and tertiary institutions by training, retraining teachers and updating curricula across all levels of education to infuse technology, technology appreciation and skills.

Only recently, the state also announced that it was embarking on the establishment of a Teachers Service Commission to better the welfare and human capital development of teachers.

Besides these, the 2024 budget estimates also show a major shift in Recurrent Expenditure and Capital Expenditure ratio with both getting N107.2bn or 21 per cent and N414.3bn or 79 per cent of the budget, respectively. This is a heartwarming departure from the perennial culture that budgeted next to nothing for execution of projects that should impact lives and grow the economy.

Instructively, recently, the Governor of Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, has also followed Governor Mbah’s example by slashing Recurrent Expenditure significantly in the budget estimates he proposed to the State Assembly.

We cannot but commend the Enugu State Government for this bold move to reposition education in the state. It is our hope, however, that the Mbah administration will walk the talk by implementing the budget to the letter when passed.

Source: Vanguard

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