GES Summit: Committing Nigeria to education development through increased funding

At the recent Global Education Summit (GES) in London, England, President Muhammadu Buhari joined other world leaders to make a firm commitment to increase funding to the sector in a substantial way. In this piece, LEON USIGBE, who attended the event, reviews Nigeria’s participation.

The estimated population of over 200 million and a total landmass of 923,768 square kilometres, confronting development issues in Nigeria will always be a daunting proposition for any government.

President Muhammadu Buhari confessed to this much during the just-concluded Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Global Education Summit (GES) held in London, United Kingdom.

The summit was co-hosted by British prime minister, Mr Boris Johnson and President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya to mobilise funds for the transformation of the education sector in low income countries.

President Buhari appeared on a panel of discussants with a live audience alongside his counterparts from other African countries including President Kenyatta, President Nana Akufo-Addo (Ghana), President Faure Eyadema (Togo) and President Lazarus Chakwera (Malawi).

The moderator quizzed the leaders on the peculiarities of the education sector of their countries and how budgetary provisions would be increased to ameliorate the situation.

For President Buhari, in trying to ensure that citizens get their desired level of education, Nigeria’s huge geographical size and population have always posed a massive challenge to its governments.

The moderator had specifically asked him: “In my mind, education in Nigeria either at individual or societal level is always a critical issue. What do you think about that critical challenge, given the significant number of people in Nigeria and the various disparities that exist?”

President Buhari did not mince words in his response as he acknowledged the difficulty Nigeria’s huge population and landmass have constituted to succeeding administrations in the country in ensuring that citizens get good quality education.

He spoke of how those factors make it harder to provide schools, necessary equipment and employing qualified teachers.

President Buhari informed his audience that Nigerians, individuals and communities, who recognise the value of education to success in life, take necessary measures to ensure that their children and wards get the required level of education to live a good life.

He said to his interviewer: “I think you have said it all.  Being over 200 million and the size of the country itself; it is a major challenge for any administration. But luckily, people have realised that education in Nigeria is a starting point. Anybody who missed the opportunity of education will miss everything because you cannot succeed outside your educational qualification.

“This is very clear to everybody. Hence, the fight for the opportunity for quality education is very severe. The problems of infrastructure, physical and intellectual; physical in terms of classrooms, equipment, among others; intellectual in terms of the teachers and convincing those who are really qualified to go into the teaching profession.

“They would rather go to where engineers are wanted; where they would award contracts rather than struggle with children day in and day out. So, I assure you that Nigerians are adequately aware of the priority of education and they are going all out to make the necessary savings to make ensure that their children and wards get the best of education.”

Just like Nigeria, many other developing countries are struggling to have their citizens better educated. Lower income countries are similarly in educationally disadvantaged.

It is in realisation of this that the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) got involved with a shared commitment to ending the world’s learning crisis. GPE has become the only global partnership and fund dedicated entirely to helping children in lower-income countries get  quality education, so they can unlock their potential and contribute to building a better world.

It has acquired nearly 20 years’ experience in helping partner countries to get more girls and boys in school and learning by convening teachers, civil society, donors, United Nations agencies, development banks, businesses and philanthropists behind partner countries leaderships to finance and support solutions so that no child is left behind.

The GPE has set a 2025 goal, which is to mobilise coordinated action and financing to enable transformative change. The priority area for the GPE in 2025 within this objective is to improve the volume, equity and efficiency of domestic budgets for education.

The partnership is conscious of the fact that “the challenge is not only about mobilizing resources, but also improving the effectiveness of spending on education. It means ensuring that public finance is: equitable: allocated and spent to reach the most marginalized, and efficient: every dollar spent goes as far as possible to improving learning.”

This summit dwelt on four thematic areas including Education’s Reset – Learning from COVID; Transforming the Child’s Learning Journey; Gender Equality In and Through Education; Ripple Effect – Education’s Impact on Sustainability and Financing for Impact – Volume, Equity, Efficiency.

President Buhari and other leaders who participated in the event dwelt on the themes and committed their countries to implementing the resolutions.

They did this by raising their hands as a sign of the commitment to that resolution and making pledges to domestic financing of education.

Accordingly, President Buhari committed himself to raising the budget for education by 50 per cent in the next two years, assuring that Nigeria would attain 100 per cent increase by 2025.

“We commit to progressively increase our annual domestic education expenditure by 50 per cent over the next two years and up to 100 per cent by 2025 beyond the 20 per cent global benchmark,” he stated.

Experts are of the opinion that the summit was significant and timely, especially for Nigeria with the huge number of people yearning for good education. They noted that despite the country’s size and population, if Nigeria followed through on President Buhari’s commitment to increased funding, the outcome would indeed be positive to transform education at an aggregate level.

A sum of $4 billion was raised at the summit, putting GPE firmly to achieving its target of raising $5 billion in the next five years to fund education in Nigeria and other poorer nations.

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