Nigerian Varsities Are Not Innovative – Ex-minister, Others

BY HENRY TYOHEMBA, Abuja

Public universities in Nigeria have been described as liabilities rather than the assets they should be to the federal and state governments which invest huge funds in them to provide quality education to the citizens.

Considering the number of years they have depended on public funds for sustenance, the stakeholders say they have not lived up to expectation.

A former education minister, former vice chancellors and others have asserted that had the universities’ management been creative enough, they would have developed viable alternative means of funding and reduced their dependence on the federal and state governments.

These views and several others were expressed by Prof. Michael Adikwu, a former vice chancellor, University of Abuja (UNIABUJA), and Prof Chinwe Obaji, Nigeria’s former education minister, during interviews with LEADERSHIP Friday on the declining budgetary allocation to the education sector in the last 10 years.

The sector got the least allocation in 10 years as President Muhammadu Buhari allotted N742.5 billion to education in the 2021 budget worth N13.08 trillion.

The stakeholders said that the figure represented 5.6 per cent of the total budget and the lowest percentage allocation since 2011.

A breakdown of the education budget showed that N579.7billion was set aside for personnel cost, N35.4 billion will go to overhead cost, while N127.3 billion is for capital expenditure.

The Federal Ministry of Education received N65.3billion and the Universal Basic Education, in charge of primary and secondary schools, got N77.6 billion. The balance was shared among other institutions in the ministry.

The yearly budgetary allocation showed that, in 2011, the sector got N393.8 billion, about 9.3 per cent of the total budget, and N468.3 billion, 9.86 per cent in the 2012 budget. The federal government voted N499.7billion or 10.1 per cent of the whole budget for the sector in 2013; N494.7billion (10.5 per cent) in 2014, N484.2billion (10.7 per cent) in 2015 and N369.6billion (7.9 per cent) in 2016. Others were N550.5 billion in 2017, which represented 7.4 per cent of the total budget; N605.8billion or 7.04 per cent in 2018; N620.5 billion or 7.05 per cent of the 2019 budget and N671. 07billion (6.7 per cent) last year.

LEADERSHIP Friday asked the education experts what needed to be done by the government and the universities to reverse the ugly trend.

In his response,…