Nigeria: World Bank says Nigeria spends $ 200 per student per year

By Chidimma C. Okeke

Jaime Saavedra Chanduvi, Senior Director and Global Practice Director for Education at the World Bank, said Nigeria was among the world's lowest education spending, devoting only $ 200 to the world. every student a year.

Chanduvi, who said this at a two-day workshop held in Abuja on sustainable financing of education in Nigeria, jointly organized by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance, has stated that funding for education was absolutely essential to build the human capital that the country needs

"Nigeria spends about 1.7% of its GDP on education, and unfortunately that number is too low, about 3.7% in Mexico, 3.8% in Indonesia, and 5% in Kenya, "he said.

"Another way to look at the challenges is how much we spend per student, Nigeria spends $ 200 per student per year, so what's that number in Mexico, $ 800, what's that number in my country, Peru? it's 1000 dollars, "he said.

A World Bank official said the world needed to invest 60 percent in education and health, while Nigeria needed about 34 percent of its investments in health and nutrition. education to overcome the challenges that this sector was facing.

He said the world was facing a crisis in its subsector of basic education, with 50 percent of schoolchildren not being able to read or write.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Adamu Adamu has urged the federal and state governments to start allocating at least 15 percent of their annual budgets to education.

Adamu said that despite the formulation of several strategic roadmaps by past and present administrations to address the challenges of the sector, the number of out-of-school children, youth literacy and adults, inadequate teacher training, including data management, and a weak curriculum were still present.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, represented by the Minister of Budget and Planning, Udo Udoma, said the current administration, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, had steadily increased funding allocated to the sector. ;education.

The Vice President said that he consistently supported the education sector by increasing his budget every year since taking office.

"In the first budget we did, we raised the capital allocation for education to NAF 35.99 billion in 2016. Then in 2017 we increased it to 56, 81 billion nairas and this year 2018, the current investment budget for education is N102 9 billion, "he said.