Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State and Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo State
AS the Oyo State Governor, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala presented a budget proposal of N144. 1 billion to the state House of Assembly, a substantial portion of the budget was devoted to education.
The governor proposed N7, 753,150,000 to the education sector so that the myriads of problem confronting it could be tackled.
Justifying the amount voted for the sector, the governor said, his administration believed that education is a right and the most enduring legacy that should be bequeathed to our children.
He said, “It is in consideration of the importance of education that the state, in spite of its lean financial resources that government has expended so much on construction of new secondary schools buildings, rehabilitated some schools of science and paid Junior School Certificate Examination and WAEC fees of candidates in public secondary schools in the state.”.
To encourage students in the state, he added that his government had resuscitated the moribund scholarship board and had approved the release of N144m for award of scholarship to 864 students of Oyo State last year.
This gesture, he noted, would continue in 2011 as the state is prepared to give scholarship to indigenes of the state to study overseas and that N600m has been allocated for this purpose.
In order to improve reading habits of people in the state, the governor hinted that community centers have been established in the 33 local governments in the state. The centres, according to him, are located in Eruwa, Ogbomoso, Oyo, Moniya, Iseyin, Kisi and Saki areas of the state. N450 m has been earmarked for the establishment of the centres.
For technical and vocational education, he said his administration had purchased equipment such as computers and other facilities worth over N105m
To encourage adult literacy programmes, two multi purpose centres had already been provided and had commenced since July,2010.
Ondo budgetsN12.4b for education
GOVERNOR Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State has presented to the Ondo State House of Assembly members a budget of N138.5billion for the 2011 fiscal year.
Of this estimate N12.406 billion was earmarked for the education sector and it came second in the funds allocated to key initiatives for the 2011 fiscal year.
Recurrent grants to Parastaltals and Tertiary Institution is put at N6.628b representing 11.68 percent of the recurrent expenditure proposal.
A sum of N7.72 billion was allocated for the development of education in the 2010 budget.
The Road construction and maintain ace took the lion share of the budget with N13.745billion budgeted for the sector.
Other key initiatives that followed the education sector include Social Community Development and Security Infrastructure which would gulp N9.64b followed by lands and housing N6.722b, water N5.479b,health N4.511b, promotion of Commerce, Agriculture N4.955b, industry N3.840b both Enhancement of Electricity supply and the judiciary would gulp N1.053b and N1billion respectively.
Dr Mimiko said that N1.500b is expected from the Education Trust Fund in the fiscal year.
Breakdown of the sect oral allocation showed that the Social Service gulped N25.377b representing 312 06 percent followed by the Economic Sector N23.594b representing 28.88 percent, Environmental and Regional Development N22.147b representing 12.94 percent and the Administrative sector N10.574b representing 12.94 percent.
He pointed out that the focus of his administration remains universal access to meaningful and qualitative education by our children irrespective of their socio economic circumstances.
“In this direction, work is on going on the construction of state Mega Primary school bin Akure, Ondo, Ikare and Okitipupa at a sum of N.39b to give unfettered access to qualitative education at the Primary School.
Also N680.58 Mini mega school at Oka, Ifon, Ore, Idanre, Ile Oluji, Araromi Obu, Oke Ijebu are at various stages of award.
He said that government has established quality education assurance agency to improve and guarantee quality of education.
The budgetary allocation to tertiary institutions were not mentioned in the budget but expected to be released during the budget analysis by the Finance Ministry.
Giving the budget analysis after the 2010 budget was presented to the House of Assembly, the then Finace Commissioner Akin Adaramola said that N1billion was budgeted for the University of Science and Technology OSUTECH in Okitipupa while Over N2billion was allocated to the Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba Akoko against the N310million allocated to it 2009 by the past administration while Rufus Giwa Polytechnic got N208m as against N63million in 2009.
Ekiti offers free education; takes N3.8 b of N74.7 b budget
Ekiti State government has budgeted the sum of N3.8billion as capital budget for education , representing 9.35 percent of the total budget of N69.9 billion for the year 2011
The state governor , Dr kayode Fayemi in his inaugural speech told the people of the state that his administration intends to introduce free and qualitative education from the primary to secondary school level
The state government said it has taken decisive action in reducing the fees being paid by students of the state _owned higher institutions.
This according to the government would reduce the burden of parents and guardians and ‘’go a long way in stimulating academic excellence by our students and thus increase our rankings among the committee of states in common examinations’’
Below in the distribution of capital allocation to education in the 2011
1.Ministry of Education—N44b,500,000,00
2.School enterprises project—N50,000,000,00
3.State Universal Basic Education Board—N1,300,000,000,00
This amounts include counterpart Funding
4. Board Foe Technical Education— N140,000,000,00
5.Tertiary Education—N5,860,000,000,00 (the sum of five billion , eight hundred and sixty milllion Naira) has been set aside as both capital expenditure and subventions to the tertiary institutions.
However, the budgetary provision for the education sector (both recurrent and capital) in 2011 budget is N14.3 billion.
This represents 19.09 per cent of the total budget
Lagos budgets 13% of 2011 proposal for education
Considering the Macro-Economic climate, the proposed 2011 budget exceeds the 2010 revised budget by 8.2%. A proposed budget of N445.180bn was presented with education gulping N61.713bn (13.9%)
According to Governor Babatunde Fashola during the presentation, Lagos State University, and the other tertiary institutions in the State, will receive additional support in the 2011 budget, especially in view of recent challenges with accreditation of some courses.
The schools rehabilitation programme, including construction and furnishing of new classroom blocks, where required, will also get significant budgetary allocations.
It is important of course to report as I have done in the past, that the various policies of Government ranging from the schools rehabilitation programme, provision of free text books, resuscitation of Voluntary Clubs, the Adopt_a_School programme, the training of teachers, and Eko Project have continued to make the right impact and yield results that are positive even if we are all anxious for a complete turnaround.
It is in this context that I report another growth in number of our students who passed the WASSCE with a minimum of 5 credits including English and Mathematics at one sitting has increased to 21.11%. This is up from 18.41% in 2009, 10.41% in 2008, and 7.58% in 2007.
While our students still need to be supported to overcome their weakness and ensure that they can combine Mathematics and English together in a minimum of 5 credits at one sitting, I must report that the percentage pass in English Language as a subject increased from 41.25% in 2009 to 77.57% in Year 2010, while the percentage pass for Mathematics increased from 22.48% in 2009 to 75.57% in Year 2010.
I am told that the impact of the free books and the improving condition of our school are accountable for this.
Perhaps the most significant result of all is that there was that no incident of cancelled or withheld result in Lagos in 2010.
Source:http://www.vanguardngr.com/
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