Abia State Commissioner for Education, Prof. Ikechi Mgbeoji, has decried the percentage of budget appropriation allocated to the Education Sector of country stating that it is too poor.
Prof. Mgbeoji who made the remark while fielding questions from newsmen at the Abia State House of Assembly yesterday shortly after their Budget defence, said UNESCO standard says 15 – 20 percent of a Country’s budget should be allocated to the Education Sector but expressed disappointment that in Nigeria it is less than 5 per cent.
According to the Commissioner, Education in Nigeria is terribly under funded and expressed optimism that if the Sector gets an ample allocation as proposed by the United Nations and the managers do the needful, Education system in the nigeria would compete favourably with any developed country in the world.
He, however, expressed pleasure over his Ministry’s performance as regards 2018 budget implementation stating they did pretty well including the Parastatals under his watch and added that they would do better in the 2019 financial year.
Meanwhile, the management of Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, has attributed overstaffing as the major factor responsible for their inability to clear up backlog salaries owed in the institution.
The Rector of the school, Prof. Ezionye Eboh, who disclosed this while fielding questions from newsmen, yesterday, said Abia Poly has about 1400 workforce, where 900 are non-teaching staff and over 80 security workers.
He noted that the current challenge predates Governor Ikpeazu’s led administration and stated that downsizing the workforce is not the solution but rather appealed to the government for more means of funding the school with a view to managing the situation pending when their proposals would be attended to.
Prof. Ebo, however, scored their level of implementation of the last 2018 budget high adding that their expectations for 2019 fiscal year would yield the desired result.
In related development, the Executive Secretary of Secondary Education Management Board, Sir Lawrence Ogbonna, disclosed that some secondary schools in the State lacked science teachers which according to him could mar the performance of public schools in external exams.
He, therefore, noted that Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has approved a waiver to engage 200 teachers majorly in science adding that with the correct staffing of the schools and quality supervision from his Board, Abia State will continually maintain its first position in the ratings.
