The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, says Nigeria will
soon effect policy to prosecute parents who refused to enrol their
children of school age in schools across the country.Mr
Adamu made this known in Abuja on Monday while addressing journalists
during the 9th edition of the weekend ministerial briefing.He
said parents who sabotage the efforts of the government at reducing the
number of out of school children would soon be criminalised and would be
made to face the wrath of the law.“Unless the issue of
parents who refused their children going to school is made a crime, and
we start jailing parents, the menace of out of school children will not
be resolved.“There are many who are still working behind culture, religion.
“So
the ministry is to effect this policy so that any parent whose child of
school age refuses to take them to school will be jailed,’’ he said.Speaking
on matching grant and other intervention funds for basic education in
Nigeria, the minister said a total of N350 billion had been expended on
the sub-sector as against N360 billion spent by the previous
administration.“In the six years preceding the Buhari
Administration, between 2009 and 2014, the federal government spent
about N360 billion worth of intervention on Basic Education covering
textbooks, teacher professional development, construction of classrooms
and library resources among others.’’Mr Adamu added that in
2015, matching and non-conditional grants disbursements to 15 states of
the federation and the Federal Capital Territory amounted to N68.4
billion.He also said that in 2016, grants disbursements to 29 states and the FCT amounted to N77 billion.
According
to him, in 2017 the federal government provided a total of N95 billion
to 24 states and the FCT, and another N109 billion to 20 states and the
FCT.“During the four years under review, the government of
President Muhammadu Buhari provided a total grant to include, Matching
grants, Educational imbalance fund, Special Educational fund and Good
Performance fund.“Others are Instructional Materials funds,
Teacher Professional Development Fund, as well as Universal Basic
Education Commission (UBEC ) Implementation and Monitoring funds across
geo-political zones as attached.’’Mr Adamu emphasised that
corruption and lack of political will from state governments were among
other reasons responsible for the collapse of basic education across the
states.“Having come to this painful conclusion, the Federal
Government decided to deduct from source, part of the last tranche of
the Paris Club refund from all the states that have not been able to
access their monies from (UBEC).“If this attitude of deliberate
refusal on the part of states to provide counterpart funding for basic
education continues, then the Federal Government will have no choice
than to sustain its strategy of deducting counterpart funding of states
percentage from source.’’Mr Adamu added that stakeholders
were awaiting the decision of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the
reduction of matching grants for state governments.
“We have
already submitted proposal on the reduction of matching grants and we
believe between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the matching grant will
be reduced as against the 50 per cent that states have been claiming is
difficult to provide,’’ he said.(NAN)
Source:- Premiumtimesng
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