United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared that at least a percentage of 26% of total public expenditure should be allotted to education. To UNESCO, has recommended 26% of the total public expenditure to be allotted to federal government and state budgets.
But, despite injecting huge amount of money in education for years, there is little improvement to see on physical and mental aspects of the learners in Nigerian schools.
Federal government, internal and external donors and state governments give huge sums of money to elementary schools but only little successes are recorded.
In November, 2023 the Executive Secretary of Universal Basic Education Commission UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi said Federal Government is spending up to N100bn annually on basic education through UBEC structuring and restructuring elementary schools in the country.
The recurrent rehabilitation and renovation of primary and secondary schools in Nigeria yield little in the effort of providing conducive environment for teaching and learning in Nigerian public schools for the teachers and the learners because of footballers the roofing and fences of schools.
Governments spend huge fund in providing teaching materials and renovating dilapidated classes every year. The government of states and the Federal Government allot huge sums of money to education in budgets mainly for renovation while the staff are neglected of training.
In 2021, Kaduna Governor, Nasir Ahmed Elrufai spent N60 billion on renovation of 4,000 primary schools in the state. While in 2022 budget, Kaduna state remarked N1.4b for the renovation and reconstruction of schools and equipping programmes across the state. Also, the State Government earmarked N7.3 billion for the construction and renovation of 117 schools in the 2023 budget and still much is needed looking at the condition of many schools in the state.
In 2019, the Former Governor of Kano state, Umar Abdullahi Ganduje spent 4 billion, for the maintenance of 1, 180 Public Primary and Secondary Schools in the State. In 2020, Ganduje disbursed the “sum of N880, 942,432.38 million for the renovation of primary schools in all the 44 local government areas of the state. Each local government area in the state was given N20 million to execute the renovation project.” In 2021 budget, the state earmarked N1.6 Billion on schools renovations across the 44 local government. 5 Billion Naira was for chairs at primary schools and one Billion Naira on construction and renovation of boreholes.
The newly elected governor of Zamfara state, Dauda Lawal had earmarked N4,346,450,209 for the renovation of 245 schools in the 14 local government areas of the state in 2023. While, the immediate past governor of the state Bello Muhammad Matawalle earmarked over N6 billion for schools renovation in 2022 budget.
Muhammad Sani Hamza, former councilor of Special Duties, Unguwar Sanusi Ward, in Kaduna South, Kaduna State, and Chairman of Unguwar Sanusi Community Association said ” Like a tradition, governments renovate schools every year while teachers are left on their own without training as most money go for renovation and provision of equipping materials destroyed by others.”
“Schools’ destruction should be tackled and contributions should be given by community stakeholders to hinder unnecessary vandalism,” Sani added.
The Former Councilor clarified that, “though, it will not come in one day for government to stop sporting activities in public schools without providing better place for sporting, but it could be better for government to encourage establishment of private stadia with lower revenue charges, provide public stadium separately or dash out one of the schools for sporting activities and ban sporting activities in others.”
Nura Muhammad, one of the primary school teachers in Sokoto South said, “Security matters, and because education is vital for every state development special security personnel can be recruited to safeguard schools from theft, vandalism and footballers, and with good initiatives, our Nigerian schools will meet the world standard status in education if not, Nigerian schools will continue to squander trillions of Naira for nothing to show in education sector, “