The Nigeria Union of Teachers has knocked state governments over the poor funding of primary school education in the country.
The union
said it was alarmed by revelations from the Executive Secretary,
Universal Basic Education Commission, Dr. Suleiman Dikko, that states
could not match the 40 per cent Federal Government grant allocated for
the implementation of Universal Basic Education programmes in states.
The NUT
Secretary-General, Obong Obong, in a statement on Friday in Abuja, said
the union considered the development a serious indictment on the states,
stressing that this best described the lack of concern by them in the
development of public primary education in the country.
This, it added, explained why Nigeria could not meet the expected target of ‘Education for all by 2015.’
Over the
years, the NUT noted, the FG had set aside 2 per cent of its
Consolidated Revenue Fund to improve public primary education in the
country, describing as regrettable, the states’ inability to access
their allocation, owing to failure to provide needed matching grants as
their requisite counterpart funding.
The
union described it as a disservice to the development of primary
education across the country, adding that the situation had degenerated
to a point where school pupils in some states receive their lessons
under trees.
The NUT
stated that with the increasing demand for quality education and
infrastructural development in schools, the reluctance of state
governments to access UBE fund and use same for what it was meant for,
is a demonstration of gross negligence of their responsibility for the
improvement of education in Nigeria.
It said,
“The union hereby calls on all state governors to take urgent steps to
access the available funds lying idle at the UBE Commission and use same
to address the problems in their primary schools.
“It is
only by so doing that they would have shown some level of concern
towards the upliftment of the status of primary education in Nigeria.”
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