On Buhari’s promise of 50% education budget increase…

In an action that can be termed as a major education development, President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged to increase the budget for Nigeria’s education sector by 50 percent over the next two years.


The President and other leaders signed a form of commitment, contained in a document, at a meeting in London, United Kingdom.
The document was titled: “Heads of State Call to Action on Education Financing Ahead of The Global Education Summit.”
“We commit to progressively increase our annual domestic education expenditure by 50% over the next two years,” he said, “and up to 100% by 2025 beyond the 20% global benchmark”.


The ongoing event in London is being co-hosted by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and Kenya President, Uhuru Kenyatta.
For now, it remains to be seen how the President, who last December signed the lowest allocation to education in 10 years, will fulfil his pledge. In 2021, about 5.5 percent, representing N742.5 billion, went to the sector from a national budget of N13.588 trillion.
Just over N615 billion will go into recurrent expenditure. Personnel costs will gulp N579.7 billion; N35.4 billion for overhead costs. The sum of N127.3 billion is for capital expenditure.
The Federal Ministry of Education got N65.3 billion; the Universal Basic Education (UBEC), covering primary and secondary schools, received N77.6 billion.
However, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recommends that 15 to 20 percent of national annual budget should be allocated to education in developing countries.


Until now, it is regrettable that little attention was paid to the education sector, as crucial as it is, by current and successive governments in Nigeria and other developing nations. Yet, education is a human right. And, like other human rights, it cannot be taken for granted. Across the world, 59 million children and 65 million adolescents are out of school. More than 120 million children do not complete primary education.


Behind these figures, there are children and youth being denied not only a right, but opportunities, a fair chance to get a decent job, to escape poverty, to support their families and to develop their communities.
It is, therefore, a significant development in the education sector to have the President and other leaders making pledge to increase the budget for the education sector by as much as 50 percent over the next two years.
Of course, the leaders have a responsibility to make sure they fulfil the promise they made at the summit in London, with a view to ensuring that boys and girls, everywhere, complete a full course of primary schooling.


The challenge is daunting, especially in Nigeria, where many of those who remain out of school are the hardest to reach, as they live in areas that are held back by conflicts. Nevertheless, the Buhari-led administration can succeed. After all, in the last six years, the government has tried to deal with the spectre of violence in areas noted for their criminal activities. However, now is the time for the government to redouble its efforts, with a view to improving the state of education.
But the government must not stop with primary education. In today’s knowledge-driven economies, access to quality education and the chances for development are two sides of the same coin. That is why the Buhari-led government must also set targets for secondary education, while improving quality and learning outcomes at all levels. That is what the Sustainable Development Goal on education aims to do.


A survey conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicates that the population of out of school children in Nigeria has risen from 10.5 million to 13.2 million, the highest in the world. Most of these children are in Nigeria’s northern states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, where Boko Haram insecurities have disrupted academic activities.


The administration should, therefore, understand that addressing the fact that an estimated 13 million children are not learning the basic skills they need to enter the labour market in Nigeria is more than a moral obligation. It amounts to an investment in sustainable growth and prosperity.


In fact, for both the Nigeria and individuals, there is a direct and indisputable link between access to quality education and economic and social development. Likewise, ensuring that girls are not kept at home when they reach puberty, but are allowed to complete education on the same footing as their male counterparts, is not just altruism, it is sound economics. Countries that have succeeded in achieving gender parity in education reap substantial benefits relating to health, equality and job creation.


Thus, President Muhammadu Buhari in particular and the country in general, should show their appreciation for the fact that Nigeria stands to gain from more and better education. According to a recent OECD report, providing every child with access to education and the skills needed to participate fully in society would boost GDP by an average 28% per year in lower-income countries and 16% per year in high-income countries for the next 80 years.
No doubt, today’s students need twenty-first-century skills, like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and digital literacy. In the end, learners of all ages in Nigeria need to become familiar with new technologies and cope with rapidly changing world and workplaces.

Having a technology-driven judiciary

During a function this week, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said that the Nigerian judiciary must embrace technology and innovation for the development of the sector and national development.
In fact, today, technology has become inevitable part in the day-to-day life of the society and the more societies come to know about technological development, the more they become able to take advantage of it. Whenever an innovation reaches certain level after it has been presented and promoted, it becomes part of the society. Digital technology has entered each process and activity made by the social system.


Osinbajo spoke as a guest speaker at the 2021 Annual Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Lagos Branch, themed: “Disruption, Innovation and The Bar.”
He said the judiciary must ensure that the country’s justice delivery mechanism is run on a system of enforceable, discernible laws and efficient institutions.


Tellingly, the Vice President said innovation in the country’s legal profession requires urgency in both thought and action, especially in a world which currently thrives on knowledge economy, where some jobs, including legal jobs, are being threatened by digitisation and Artificial Intelligence.


“Artificial intelligence is commonly used to perform tasks such as legal research and due diligence, document and contract review and the prediction of legal outcomes – these are tasks that would have been performed by lawyers,” he said. “With the continuing progress in technology, it is only a matter of time before the time capsule catches up with us in Nigeria.”
And he cannot be closer to the fact. Technology is woven into our daily lives. It is the now and the future. One does not need to look too far to see mistaken disregard of technology in the past.


Thus, as a core public institution, judiciary, and courts, in particular, need to take a leading role in the responsible implementation of technology in the law and in legal practice, with a specific emphasis on problem solving and the facilitation of the just resolution of disputes in a quick and inexpensive manner, while still maintaining the fundamentally human character of the courts.


However, as digitalisation has already disrupted other industries, it is possible to predict that, if Nigeria does nothing to adapt to the situation, it will go further and disrupt the business model of the legal industry.
And, in the end, as Osinbajo rightly said, the extent to which the judiciary in Nigeria “can attract business to our country depends, in part, upon investor perception of the quality of our justice delivery system and if Nigeria is seen as inefficient and ineffective, it would lose out to more efficient systems.