Declare State Of Emergency On School Infrastructure, Reps Tell Federal Government

Stakeholders debated the decision of state governments to abdicate their responsibilities for investing in basic education in their domains during the National Education Summit, which closed on Friday in Abuja.

The summit organised by Human Development Initiatives had as its theme: ‘Building qualitative, inclusive and adaptive education system: Meeting modern day education challenges in Nigeria.”

The chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education, Julius Ihonvbere, demanded the declaration of state of emergency in school infrastructure.

The stakeholders said a good number of states do not appear enthusiastic about funding basic education as they do not access funds in the Universal Basic Education Commission.

Ihonvbere said the absence of policy consistency, poor funding and inadequate basic facilities was a major challenge in the sector.

While expressing concerns over state governments’ refusal to access their matching grants from UBEC, he said that many state governments which had collected counterpart funding for education do not use it judiciously.

Ihonvbere said, “There is a problem of absence of policy consistency and even when we have good policies there is very limited follow up and at times poor funding of those programmes so that they would have deep root and consistency and replication within the system. There is a weak administrative system in our school.

“The Federal Government has their own schools which they are taking care of. But how can a state government stay for eight years without accessing its funds with UBEC? They don’t.

“And some, when they access the money, they don’t deploy it to the right place. They budget money for education but they don’t release it for education, though not all the states as some are doing very well like Gombe, Borno, Lagos, Ekiti and Ogun.

“We want an emergency to be declared on school infrastructure. The children are schooling under very dangerous buildings.

“Also, people who manage the schools themselves need to be reeducated. There is a need for special programmes to bring teachers and instructors into the digital age. You cannot teach what you don’t have or know. There is no reason why we can’t digitise schools and provide basic facilities in the school.”

A former Provost of Osun State College of Education, Labayo Kazeem, said the nation’s education sector was not lacking in policy but in its policy implementation.

According to him, governors were not willing to provide infrastructure, adding that adult education was completely dead in most states.

He said, “They are more concerned about other things that are happening apart from investing in education. We don’t need development partners to tell us what to do right.We are not lacking in policy. They are so comprehensive. We have joined every convention. Education is the only thing that can drive development.

“If we must develop as a nation, the students must be given the opportunity to excel. That is why when we go anywhere in the world we can adapt. Help us tell the governors to be serious with our education.”