Abubakar Rasheed, the executive secretary of the National
Universities Commission (NUC), says federal universities spend between N60
million and N80 million monthly on electricity.
Speaking on Friday at the pre-convocation lecture of Bingham
University in Nasarawa, titled ‘Issues in the Nigerian Tertiary Education
System’, Rasheed said the federal government should increase financial
investment in tertiary education.
“We need to be a little bit more serious with our education
sector in this country,” NAN quoted him as saying.
“Public universities have to budget close to N1 billion for
energy every year to buy diesel, pay [for electricity], service generators,
attend to some other things. And what does the government give them?
“Today, at the
national assembly, we are going for federal universities budget defence and we
hope that if we are lucky, the national assembly may allocate between N11
million to N12 million per month as overheads to take charge of energy every
month.
“But in reality, what universities spend is between N60
million to N80 million monthly to pay for electricity. And that is why there
are inadequacies of water, counselling, support for teachers, communication,
internet, and cleaning services.”
Rasheed also said there has been an increase in the number
of out-of-school children due to insecurity, adding that parents are now
withdrawing their kids from primary schools due to fear of attacks.
“The widening gap of
out-of-school children, which currently stands at 18.5 million, is the highest
in the world,” he said.
“The figure has jumped from 10 million as parents withdraw
their children from school for fear of abduction, kidnapping, and the rest. So,
the illiteracy rate now stands at 78 million while tertiary enrollment is about
10.1 percent.
“This has affected the youths’ development index which
places Nigeria at 161 out of 181. As disheartening as the rate is, it describes
how the youths are increasingly frustrated and in disillusion in this country.
“This is happening as a result of low funding for education,
especially at the local government level
“The quality of
Nigeria’s primary education is ranked 120 out of 136 in the world as a result
of the outcome of inadequate funding of education.”
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