‘Reserve 30 per cent of budget for education’

Marnegie African Diaspora Fellow and Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College United States of America, Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to allocate 30 per cent of the budgetary allocation to education.
Okome called on the Federal Government to subsidise education so that children of the poor would have access to qualitative education.
She warned Buhari to be wary of countries offering to help Nigeria, saying only committed Nigerians at home and abroad must be used to fashion out policies to turn around the fortunes of the country.
Prof. Okome, who delivered the 65th Interdisciplinary discourse of the Postgraduate School University of Ibadan organised by the Dean , Prof. Adeyinka Aderinto entitled: ‘Globalization and the political economy of Higher education in Nigeria’, said public universities are still subsidised in the United States.
She said: “Education ought not be left to pure market forces. Government should fund education very well. It should also not be handed over even to our good friends. There are many people who want to help us now. I was horrified when I heard that DFID has people in the Federal Ministry of Education helping us to write policy.
“What kind of policy is that Does any Nigerian go to the UK to write policies for them? We should be weary of our friends and we should be the vanguard in strengthening our institutions. We should become more excited about what we are doing inspite of the challenges of underfunding, and infrastructure decay that we face. We need to strengthen our system and educational institutions to meet the demands of the present and future and these efforts must be spearheaded by indigenes at home and in the Diaspora.”

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