Supervising Minister of Education, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, has said that the main thrust of the 2014 budget of the ministry is to consolidate on the modest achievements made over the last few years on access to education and quality assurance.
Wike disclosed this during a meeting on the ministry’s 2014 budget defence before the House of Representatives Committee on Education.
According to him, the landscape of the basic, secondary and tertiary institutions is dotted with infrastructure development.
The minister, while giving the summary of the 2014 proposal, said a total sum of N493, 458,130,268 had been proposed for the sector, adding that the total capital proposal is N 49,536,035,231.
He said there was a significant drop of about 30.46 per cent of the 2014 capital proposal compared to that of 2013.
He, however, said the various interventions to the sector, which were outside the annual budget, would help in addressing the challenges.
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Education, Hon. Suleiman Aminu, in his opening remarks, said the budget defence was “coming at a time when the sector is facing critical challenges,” noting that past efforts had not given the desired result.
He said poor release of appropriation had been the bane of implementation, and called on the executive to take steps at addressing it.
