The United Nations Children Fund(UNICEF) has lamented that poor education financial investment is impeding expected improvement in children’s literacy and numeracy in Nigeria’s basic education level.
The UNICEF Nigeria Chief of Education, Saadhna Panday-Soobrayan, in her remarks at the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in Nigeria organized in partnership with the USAID, predicted that expected improvement in children’s literacy and numeracy won’t come as soon as expected because of poor financial investment in the education system, particularly at the basic level.
She said Nigeria is spending too little on education on average of 1.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country is being spent on education when the international benchmark was four to six per cent stressing that the available money is not even spent well”
A larger percentage of the allocated funds are spent on higher education when children at basic education level can neither read, write nor count. In nutshell, significant investment is required in Nigeria’s education system, particularly at the basic level.
Panday-Soobrayan also raised the issue of the safety of the schools as she described it as a challenge which has discouraged parents and their children from attending schools.
“Many children are not in school because the schools are unsafe for them. Insufficient teachers and teaching materials too are some of the challenges.”
