“In other words, the tuition paid by Nigerian students studying in Ghana with a better organised system is more than the annual budget of all federal universities in the country,” adding that “Nigeria is today placed third on the list of countries with the highest number of students studying overseas”, Sanusi also said.
The CBN governor said that the time has come when the nation needs to take the difficult step of overhauling political structures which have ensured that states spend about 96 percent of their resources paying salaries and allowances.
Sanusi also faulted the wisdom behind establishing nine new federal universities when existing ones have not been adequately funded by the government. According to him, the paucity of funding has led to a mass exodus of students and teachers to better organised educational settings such as Ghana, South Africa and other parts of the world.
In his paper entitled “Re-invigorating education in Nigeria: An essay in honour of Professor Adamu Baike”, he said “ultimately, we will have to be confronted with the task of taking the difficult step of overhauling the political structures that we have.”
What Sanusi failed to add that is that the United Kingdom is the destination of choice for Nigerian Students. Thus it was reported that Nigerian money fuels the UK education sector to the tune of N246 billion annualy. And that was when foreign students pay £9000 per year in the UK.
According to statistics from the British Council, since 2002, the number of Nigerians being educated in the UK increased by over 75%. That number was generated in 2006 and so it can be expected that the percentage is higher given the continued dilapidation of the Nigerian education system. In a 2007-2008 list of countries sending students to the U.K., Nigeria ranked 8th. It is beyond question that Nigeria would be much better off if that N246 billion that was spent in the UK had been spent in Nigeria schools.
In a research published by the British Council in 2008, it was also predicted in 2008 that the number of Nigerian students in the UK will explode from just 2,800 in 2007, to 30,000 by 2015.
Its calculations are based on a number of factors, including the poor quality of Nigerian universities and the rapid growth in the number of families that can afford to send a child overseas to study.
In view of these bad reports, I still wonder how anyone conversant with happenings in Nigeria could be happy. Have you ever heard something good from Nigeria?
Like Lamido Sanusi, I, Ogbuefi Ndigbo also asks: “Do we need 36 states? Do we need the number of ministries that we have? Is an economy where states spend 96 percent of their revenue paying civil servants an economy that is likely to grow in the long run? These are difficult questions that we need to ask.
“We have created states and local governments and ministries as structures that are economically unviable and the result is that we do not have funding for infrastructure, we do not have funding for education; we do not have funding for health”.
This damning verdict by Sanusi will likely dampen the spirit of many who have been agitating for creation of more states in the country.
Apparently explaining the government’s expenditure portfolio, the CBN governor said, “I don’t know how many people know that 70 percent of the revenue of the federal government is spent paying salaries and overhead; leaving the rest 30 percent for 150 million Nigerians”.
What this means, according to him, is that there is no money for the provision of infrastructural facilities by the various tiers of government, pointing out that in an emerging economy like Nigeria, a well designed educational policy should be an integral part of its development strategy.
He argued that the present development strategies should include measures to invest in human capital that facilitates the upgrading of industries and engender the economy to attain optimal resource utilization.
While acknowledging the growth in the number of federal, state and private universities in the country in recent times, Sanusi said that “the recent decision of the federal government to establish nine additional universities will further increase the number of federal universities.
“It is not the place of the Central Bank Governor to comment on education policy. But one wonders the wisdom behind creating new universities when the ones we have built are still suffering from underfunding”.
While lamenting the huge number of Nigerian students studying outside the country in what he described as “better organized educational settings” and the huge amount of money they pay as tuition, the CBN governor noted that the tuition paid by these students is more than the annual budget for all federal universities in the country.
He noted that though the structural shift from 7-5-4 to the 6-3-3-4 system of education in 1983 was expected to address many of the perceived deficiencies and respond to the educational yearnings of the citizens for technological and self reliant skills, the system was endangered by funding challenges owing largely to the swings in economic fortunes of the country.
He contended that a sustainable financing framework should be established to support primary education which is the foundation to all other educational achievements, pointing out that inadequate funding and lack of funds could stifle the attainment of the Universal Basic Education goals.
Red factor says; Nigerian leaders have lost it, even Ghana. Nowhere left to spend your stolen riches you are now suffering too. Time to make your home safe for you to be able to live in it. Youths need attention!
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