FG to launch education investment promotion initiatives

THE federal government, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, is to launch an education investment promotion initiative as part of efforts to attract more funding to all levels of education in Nigeria.

The initiative, according to the Project Coordinator and Chairman of COGNITUS Consulting, Mrs Arete Zoe Amana, is to open up the education sector and facilitate domestic and foreign direct investments for education development.

Speaking at a media parley in Abuja, Amana lamented that the nation’s education sector has been plagued with so many challenges despite government’s spending on the sector.

She decried a situation where only about 20 per cent of over 1.5 million candidates seeking admissions to tertiary institutions annually in Nigeria are offered placements.

Amana said: “Poor results in the General Certificate in Education, non-payment of staff salaries in Nigerian institutions of learning at all levels, deficit of quality teachers and moribund technical and vocational education institutions, parlous state of the learning environment across the spectrum and overall quality issues point to the core challenge of funding and good governance for both public and private institutions.”

She said the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education, would host what she called EDUINVEST Nigeria from 1st to 3rd of November, 2016 at the Calabar International Conference Centre.

She explained that EDUINVEST Nigeria 2016 is a domestic platform for the convergence of stakeholders in the education sector and knowledge industry to discuss investments and innovative financing strategies as well as launch specific initiatives for education development.

The forum is a platform for multi-stakeholders engagement platform which will lead to the emergence of a new framework for investments and financing of education in Nigeria.

Amana said the current economic recession calls for strategic efforts to be made to reduce the huge capital flight running into billion of naira spent by Nigerians on education of their children in Ghana and other countries abroad.

She noted that even though the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has prescribed 26 per cent of national budget to education, government alone cannot fund education.

She said the education sector in Nigeria must be opened for both domestic and foreign direct investment.