Global summit: ActionAid lauds Buhari’s pledge to education budget increase

The ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his commitment to increase education spending by 50 percent over the next two years and up to 100 percent by 2025.

AAN Country Director, Ene Obi, said weekend in Abuja that the President’s commitment was with the objective to reach the global benchmark of 20 percent of public allocation and expenditure to education.

Daily Trust reports that this was a commitment by the President made at the Global Education Summit in London which was co-hosted by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

According Obi, ActionAid is looking forward to the next steps and actions to back up the President’s commitment, to address the numerous challenges confronting the education sector.

“Nigeria is a signatory to many international instruments on the delivery of quality education, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as such, we expect to see a directive to all relevant government Ministries, Departments and Agencies to prioritize and commence the process of incremental budgeting to actualize the commitment.

“We are particularly delighted that the commitment responds to the call for governments to take actions to increase the share of funds allocated to and spent on free, quality, inclusive public education. This is very critical for the transformation of the sector and will help in placing the country on the path to sustainable education for all” she said.

The AAN boss said that following the trend analysis of the Federal Government Budget by ActionAid Nigeria over the years, the allocation to education has declined relatively. Whereas the size of the Federal Government budget has increased since 2016, the allocation to education has been on the decline, although the allocation to education in the overall 2021 FGN budget increased from 5.61 percent in 2020 to 5.68 percent in 2021, it was lower than the seven percent attained in 2016, 2018 and 2019.