The Unity Schools Old Students Association (USOSA), called on the federal government to give the basic education required adequate attention, adding that not until the government began to give priorities to basic education, the other layers of education would not improve.
The President General of the association, Mr Michael Magaji, disclosed this in Abuja, on Tuesday, at the press briefing to herald the 40th Plenary and 2023 Annual General Meeting of the association with the theme, “The Journey To Nationhood: 50 Years of Unity Schools.”
He said that it is easy to build on tertiary education if the foundation is solid and any country that does not apply adequate funding to education is going to be threatened by the challenges of the future.
He noted that hopefully when the intervention line for secondary budget commenced in 2024, there would be great improvement in the sector.
Magaji said: “The government has a constitutional obligation to fund public education and any type of funding is not too costly for the sake of our country and national development. Any amount of money you spend on education, no matter how much, will give you the desired results. We cannot afford not to fund education.
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“Interestingly this years budget, I know education featured third highest which to me is a good sign that the federal government is showing more concern in education, our issue really is about the balance in the allocation of basic, secondary and tertiary.
“We feel the emphasis on the bulk of the budget should go to basic and secondary education which is the formative year of a child,once you have that pedagogy right it’s easy to build on tertiary. But if we are doing the reverse, then we will have challenges and that has been the case for a very long time.
“Apart from the budget of the federal government on education, we have interventions from agencies like TETFund who are doing tertiary education, the education tax of three per cent goes to TETFund but it is only for higher institutions.”
In the areas of capacity building, Magaji said there was need for continuous strengthening of the various institutions to train manpower fit to teach students in the schools.
Added that, “In terms of capacity, educational planning, resourcing and training of those managing the process, we must continue to strengthen the institutions that train teachers.
” We must provide training for teachers and strengthen the examination bodies so that they can use the modern tools to deliver our exams and prepare students also.
“We need to build strong institutions and that has not always been the case because of so many reasons around corruption but if we continue to strengthen these institutions, we will be able to deal with it. Our people must be educated because it is very key to the nation.”
On the state infrastructural deficit in the schools, he said that mainstreaming the alumni associations would help in strengthening public education as well as support the government in providing infrastructures for the benefit of the students.
Also speaking on character formation, he said that celebrating 50 years of the second generation of the schools had greatly helped in forming Nigerian students to be great ambassadors of the country anywhere they found themselves.