The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has said plans are on to increase the funding of the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, from 2% of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to 4%.

He said a bill to make that become a law is already before the National Assembly.

He disclosed this during a meeting with private sector leaders in Ikoyi, Lagos.

He also said the Federal Ministry of Education would soon launch Education State Wide Approach, eSWAD, which would see development partners such as the World Bank, private sector and the civil society being brought on board.

Private sector leaders in attendance included the Chairman of Zenith Bank, Mr Jim Ovia, the Chairman of Coronation Group, Mr Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, the Managing Director of Sterling Bank, Mr Abubakar Suleiman, Mr Kola Adesina of Sahara Energy Group, the Italian Ambassador to Nigeria, the Deputy British High Commissioner among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Alausa said education remains a cornerstone of development and that the meeting would help deepen engagement with the private sector.

“More importantly, the private sector is a critical partner in driving innovation. Also, strong education systems are built on financing and government alone cannot do this. Collaboration is needed between the ministry, private sector and civil society,” he said.

Alausa said over 60 million Nigerians are between the ages of four to 14 and that almost 45 million suffer from learning poverty.

“We have about 15 million who are out of school and about 6 million of the number are girls. But in the last one year, we have been able to return 1.3 million back to school. We need about $345 million annually to reintegrate out-of-school children back to school.

“ Regarding Technical and Vocational Education Training, TVET, over 1.3 million applied out of which we are already training 160,000 in various centres nationwide. We have so far paid N11 billion to those training the participants and over N3 billion as stipends to the participants.”

Alausa said the FG is also committing N100 billion into building hostels in federal higher institutions this year.

On welfare of workers, Alausa said 6,842 workers in tertiary institutions have benefitted from different loan facilities and that an individual could get up to N10 million. (Vanguard)