By INALEGWU SHAIBU
ABUJA—THE Senate Committee on Education yesterday tasked the Federal Government to raise N500 billion bonds to overhaul the nation’s education sector.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who gave the charge at the 2011 budget defence of the Education Ministry, explained that the country needed huge capital outlay, such as was injected into the banking sector, to revamp the decadent education sector.

He lamented that the long neglect of the sector had placed the country among the least developed countries of the world because of dearth of human capital.

He said: “Our education sector is not just deteriorating; it is in fact in shambles. It is the major casualty of our decades of wrong prioritization.

“Given the state of our educational institutions and the goals of achieving Vision 20:2020, we need to lay the foundation by making it absolutely necessary to raise more money for the sector. Indeed, our education sector is not just deteriorating. It is in fact in shambles. It is major casualty of our decades of wrong prioritization.

“Recently, for example, the Asset Management Company, AMCON, announced plans to raise about N2.5 trillion to deal with the bad loans in the banking sector.”

“In my view however, dealing with the issues in our educational sector is equally a national priority and we should allow the sector to raise a bond of no less than N500 billion to provide funds for the repositioning of the sector.”

Senator Chukwumerije, who also commended the 25 percent increment for the sector in the 2011 budget, charged the various agencies to improve on their internally generated revenue base.

Noting that government alone could not properly fund the sector, he said “I will like to advise that there is no way the federal government can meet all your financial demands.

“In the meantime, it becomes necessary for MDAs to strengthen measure that will boost internal revenue, international collaboration and competition to obtain research grants for all sources.

“MDAs are also expected to keep good records of their internally generated revenue. The projected IGR for 2011 should be submitted to the committee for approval before it is expended.” The committee had been passionate on the way institutions utilize their IGR because of the huge overhead expenses which cannot be totally funded from annual budget allocation.”

Allocation to the sector in the 2011 budget is N339.5 billion, out of which N 279.2 billion is for personnel cost, N25.07 billion for overhead cost, while the sum of N35.088 billion is for capital expenditure.