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THE President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), did not fulfil his promise to increase the annual domestic education expenditure by 50 per cent over the next two years, according to the details of the 2022 Appropriation Bill currently before the National Assembly.

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Buhari made the promise during the Global Education Summit which was held in London, United Kingdom recently.

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During the summit, the President had joined other world leaders in making a commitment to increase funding of the education sector.

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.

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In 2016, the first budget prepared by Buhari’s regime after taking over from former President Goodluck Jonathan in May 2015, the Federal Government allocated N369.6bn which amounted to 6.7 per cent of the national budget of N6.06tn to education, while in 2017, N550.5bn; 7.38 per cent of the N7.29tn budget was allocated to the sector.

In 2018, N605.8bn, out of N9.12tn budget, representing 7.04 per cent was allocated to education; in 2019, it was N 620.5bn, representing 7.05 per cent of the N 8.92tn budget.

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In 2020, N671.07bn of N10.33tn which amounted to 6.7 per cent was allocated to the sector; while in 2021 the sector got N742.5bn of N13.6tn budget, representing 5.6 per cent.

However, during the summit in London, Buhari had said, “We commit to progressively increase our annual domestic education expenditure by 50 per cent over the next two years and up to 100 per cent by 2025 beyond the 20 per cent global benchmark.”

But analysis of the 2022 Appropriation Bill which the President presented before the National Assembly last week revealed that the allocation to the education sector showed an allocation of N875,925,404,037 (which includes a UBEC allocation of N139,236,349,701) out of a total budget size of N16.9 tn.

This means that the sector got a 5.3 percent allocation which falls below last year’s percentage of 5.6 per cent.

Source: www.punchng.com