Peter Okebukola, the chairman, of the 2022 Bullion Lecture has berated Nigerians for believing that funding tertiary education is a complex issue like solving quadratic equations and other complex mathematical equations.
Okebukola, a former executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) in his opening remarks of the 6th annual bullion lecture series organised by the Centre for Financial Journalism with the theme: “Funding Tertiary education in Nigeria: Challenges and Opportunities held on Thursday, March 31 at the event of the Civic Centre, Victoria Island Lagos explained that funding tertiary education is very simple.
“Just determine the unit cost of training a student in any course in any university, then multiply it with the number of students and institutions involved,” he said.
The incumbent chairman of the council of the National Open Universities of Nigeria (NOUN) reiterated that all it requires to know what it takes to fund tertiary education in Nigeria is to get the unit cost of the amount it takes to adequately train a student.
However, he disclosed that the problem is majorly on who is going to pay what percentage of the total cost.
“Sharing is key to solving the problem of funding tertiary education. The challenge is getting the government to commit to paying a particular percentage of the amount as at when due,” Okebukola noted.
Besides, another myth addressed by the intellectual award-winning scholar revealed that many Nigerians ignorantly believe that United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has any written rule directing the government of any country to ensure that 26percent of its budgetary allocation is channelled to education.
“The belief that UNESCO has a directive that governments of member nations should allocate 26percent of their budget to education is false. It is not true, I once asked this question at a global conference, and the Japanese who was in charge then asked me where I got the notion. UNESCO 26percent education allocation is a fallacy many Nigerians have bought into and it should not be so,” he noted.
Okebukola went on to request that the communiqués of this year’s bullion lecture be communicated to where the action will be taken on the resolution reached for the needed change.
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Ernest Ebi, the chairman of the board of trustees of the Centre for Financial Journalism, was ably represented by Akpan Ekpo, a member of the board and a former vice-chancellor of the University of Calabar appreciated the panellists and audience for finding time to grace the event.
Ebi explained that the 6th annual programme series was tailored to address pressing issues affecting Nigeria, especially the tertiary education sector, such as funding, and incessant Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) industrial action bedevilling the sector for years.
“I hope Nigerians will be able to bid farewell permanently to ASUU strike through the lessons gotten from the 2022 bullion lecture,” he said.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the executive governor of Lagos State and guest of honour at the event, who was represented by Rabiu Olowo, the state commissioner of finance decried the protracted ugly development between the federal government and ASUU which is a fallout of inadequate funding of the tertiary education in the country. He called on all stakeholders and shareholders in the sector to join forces to find solutions to the issues of inadequate funding of education in Nigeria.
“I strongly believe that the time has come for all stakeholders to proffer lasting solution to the issue of funding tertiary education and indeed the education sector generally in tour country. We need to develop a new innovative approach and take a cue from the model being operated in developed countries bearing in mind that government cannot do it alone,” he said.
The governor applauded the Centre for Financial Journalism the organisers of the lecture for sustaining the lecture series and keeping in mind that government will continue to focus on empirical points that will emanate from the discussion.
“We look forward to the recommendations and novel ideas that emancipate from this course. I want to assure you that we in Lagos are in pursuit of quality education will take the recommendations very seriously,” the governor assured.
Among the panellists are Ngozi Osarenren, the dean of education foundations, at the University of Lagos, and a former commissioner for education in Edo State, and Kayode Soremekun, the former vice-chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, and the chairman of the editorial board of BusinessDay Media Limited, among others.
