Sunday PUNCH’s investigation has revealed that about 54 bills were proposed in three months by the members of the House of Representatives for the establishment of tertiary institutions across the country.
This is as the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics cautioned the lawmakers against the introduction of new institutions, while the government failed to take care of the existing ones.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, while welcoming members of the House from 2020 Christmas and New Year holiday in February this year, cautioned the lawmakers against bills for the establishment of new institutions.
He had said the depleting revenue base of the country did not encourage the creation of more institutions.
Reps ignore speaker
However, a tally conducted by our correspondent on Saturday revealed members had presented about 54 bills for the establishment of new institutions comprising universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education between June and September 2021.
There are currently 170 universities in Nigeria comprising 79 private universities, 43 federal universities and 48 state-owned universities.
Similarly, data obtained from the website of the National Board for Technical Education in Nigeria revealed that the country has a total of 153 polytechnics comprising 37 federal polytechnics, 51 state polytechnics and 64 private polytechnics.
Also, Nigeria has a total of 27 federal Colleges of Education, 82 privately owned COEs and 54 state-owned COEs, making a total of 163 Colleges of Education in the country.
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation had in the Education for All report for 2000 to 2015 tagged, ‘The Dakar Framework for Action,’ called for significant increase in financial commitment by national governments and donors to the education sector to accelerate progress towards the EFA goals, indicating allocation of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent to education.
In 2016, the first budget prepared by the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), allocated N369.6bn to education, 6.7 per cent of the national budget.
In 2017, N550.5bn, 7.38 per cent, was allocated to education; in 2018, N605.8bn out of the N9.12tn budget, representing 7.04 per cent was allocated to the sector.
In 2019, it was N620.5bn representing 7.05 per cent of the N8.92tn budget, while the sector got N671.07bn of N10.33tn, which amounted to 6.7per cent of the budget for year 2020.
Education got 5.6 percent in the 2021 budget, while the 2022 appropriation bill before the National Assembly gave the N875.9bn, five per cent, N16.9tn budget estimate.
Meanwhile, the National President of ASUP, Anderson Ezeibe, in an interview with Sunday PUNCH advised the Federal Government to channel resources into the existing institutions.
He said, “What we need to focus on right now is not the establishment of new institutions but taking care of existing ones. Most of the old schools are dilapidated. Lecturers are being owed salaries and you keep on creating more institutions.
“You can’t leave the existing institutions without development and say you want to establish new ones. We should channel the available resources into the existing ones.”
PUNCH
