Mixed reactions trail the 2017 education budget presented on Wednesday by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly.

Ike Onyechere, the Chairman Exam Ethics Marshal International (EEMI), an NGO, expressed dissatisfaction over the rating of education in the budget.

Mr. Onyechere said that education should be top priority of the budget, describing the place ascribed to the sector as unfair.

“The budgets is not fair to education at all; it shows that the role of education in terms of rejuvenating the economy has not been recognised and appreciated.

“Else, education should have topped the list. I expected that by now major efforts should be made in investing in the sector.

“When we talk about building infrastructure, there are no well-equipped laboratories in our schools to properly train our graduates, a massive Marshal intervention is absolutely needed in the sector.”

He added that most graduates were incompetent because they are products of the country’s collapsed education system.

He explained that if education was given its appropriate place in the nation’s development plan, the country’s technicians and engineers would be well trained and that there would be no need to employ foreign technicians.

“If our education is not right, our products will not be right because of the standard we put into it.

“Education should be placed at the same level with infrastructure because it is the products of our education that will build the needed infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Hamzat Lawal, the Chief Executive Officer Connected Development, CODE, an NGO, extolled the increase in capital expenditure in education from N37 billion in 2016 to N50 billion in 2017.

Mr. Lawal, however, noted that increased expenditure does not directly lead to improved performance and service delivery.

According to him, there are several key reforms required in the education sector for such increased expenditure to work.

He noted that transparency and accountability in implementation was crucial.

Mr. Lawal said that citizens engagement, which, he said was currently lacking in the polity, was also important in implementation.

He said that CODE while recently tracking governmental spending of 2016 capital funds in education in rural communities, observed that most capital items were still at their contracting stage.

He, however, called for a strong regime to reconcile the 2016 spill over and 2017 budget implementation.

“We ask for transparency and accountability in the implementation of the 2017 education appropriation, also increased citizen engagement, so that rural community stakeholders can track the implementation on their own.

“As we get further understanding on the 2017 budget, we are deploying mechanisms to track portions of the education appropriation in poor communities,” Mr. Lawal said.

Also commenting, Shittu Obasa, a public servant and parent, expressed disappointment with the education budget.

Mr. Obasa said that reports of over 10 million out-of-school children in the country should be of concern to the government and as such ensure adequate funding of the sector.

“Education is the pivot of development and any attempt to make it look like a sector that should not be given due attention is rather unfortunate.

“Every segment of the society must be educated and have a right to education.

“We have over 10 million out-of-school children.

“With this kind of allocation given to education, it does not speak well of the government of the day in its commitment to advance the cause of human capital development,” Mr. Obasa said.