READ : BUHARIS PLANS TO RECOVER THE NIGERIAN EDUCATION SECTOR

President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2016 budget, that was recently presented in the National Assembly, mentioned a few programs that were supposed to improve the quality of education in Nigeria.

File Photo of President Buhari during the presentation of the 2016 budget.

President Buhari has presented a $30 billion budget for the 2016 fiscal year at the National Assembly on December 22, 2015.
However, there was controversy, as the national document was withdrawn by presidency later and some parts were corrected.
Over the last decade, Nigeria’s exponential growth in population has put huge pressure on the country’s resources and on already overstretched public services and infrastructure.
Below are three points that may improve Nigeria’s education:

1. To recruit more teachers

One was to recruit 500,000 unemployed graduates and National Certificate of Education holders as teachers and deploy them to mainly rural areas to solve the lasting problem of unemployment.
This lack of capable teachers in Nigeria is one of the badly hit cases with studies indicating that the country needs to spend $1.8bn to shore up her teaching force. No doubt that Nigeria needs teachers urgently.

2. Science and tech free education programme

The Federal government in December last year revealed plans to offer free education to science technology students via a cash-transfer programme; this would be carried out in phases.
It is likely that the government expects to implement this from the N500bn (US$2.5bn) social welfare interference reserved in this year’s proposed budget.

3. Free daily meal to primary school pupils

President Buhari had during presidential campaign promised to provide one meal a day for all primary school pupils.
It will give the education sector a renovation via the Home Grown School Feeding programme.