Mr Celestine Okwudili, the Governance Manager of ActionAid Nigeria, has urged Sokoto State Government and community members, to cooperate in harnessing Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) opportunities, to facilitate proper funding of education.
Okwudili made the call on Tuesday at a Baseline Data Validation meeting, part of `Breaking Barriers’ project being executed in some schools and communities in the state.
He advised stakeholders to take decisive steps to boost revenue generation as well as timely releases of funds allocated to the education sector, in order to improve the quality of education.
He described the meeting as successful considering the different views and challenges discussed by relevant stakeholders on issues mitigating policies, learning and infrastructure in education sector.
“We are happy with participants because they opened up and spoke on some key issues. This will allow us to fashion out challenges and proper channelling of interventions.
“Looking at the budgetary allocations to education in Sokoto by 26 per cent to 27 per cent in the last three years, it is encouraging and appreciable.
“What is left now is proper releases and implementation.”
Okwudili said that participants observed that inclusive education policy had not been domesticated in the state and urged stakeholders to fine tune implementation.
According to him, pariticipants observed that the `Home Grown School Feeding Scheme(HGSF)’, had facilitated high enrolments and suggested that such intervention schemes needed sustained to achieve greatersuccess.
He tasked the government to break the barriers to quality public education by improving tax collection and and ensure proper management in order to ensure sustainable funding of the sector.
In her presentation, Anna Madziga, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) Consultant, listed some of the barriers to public primary education as poor school infrastructure, violence and discrimination.
Madziga said that inadequate attention to students living with disabilities and failure to recruit and retain good quality teachers were among the barriers.
According to her, the project is aimed at ensuring that public education system becomes more responsive to the needs of all categories of students.
She said public education system should not marginalise children on the grounds of disability or otherwise.
The consultant noted that money accruing from a proper tax regime could be useful in addressing infrastructure deficit in Nigeria’s education sector.
She commended Alhaji Sada Haidara, the Local Education Secretary of Sokoto South Local Government Area, for prompt assistance to a student with disability, to ease his transportation.
Mr Laban Onisimus, NORAD Project Coordinator, urged states to commit reasonable resources to education development and ensure proper implementation of right policies.
“If states are committed to finding resources to increase the size of their education budget for globally agreed targets, all children, including the poorest and most marginalised, will enjoy free, quality public education.”
Onisimus commended the partners on the project and urged residents to channel inquiries to them.
Earlier, Prof. A’isha Madawaki, Sokoto State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, described the survey as timely, adding that it would assist officials to address some issues.
Madawaki stressed that the state government had achieved a lot in the area of educational development and gave an assurance of greater commitment to do more.
Alhaji Shehu Abdullahi, the Director of International Cooperation in state’s Ministry of Budget and Planning, noted that many partnership projects were ongoing.
Abdullahi lauded ActionAid for its support, and assured the organisation that the state government would further appreciate revenue expansion drive and the implementation of other projects that better the lives of citizens.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that officials from the state Ministry of Education and the State Universal Education Board (SUBEB) attended the meeting.
Other participants were School Management Committees, Community-Based Organisations and Parent Teachers Associations. (NAN)
