A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has called on the National Assembly to stop paying lip service to basic education in the country.
He made this call in a statement on Sunday titled, ‘National Assembly should stop paying lip service to Universal Basic Education in Nigeria.’
The human rights lawyer also faulted the lawmakers for attempting to amend the Universal Basic Education Act of 2004 by introducing severe penalties for parents who fail to send their children to school.
“The needless resolutions are indeed unfortunate because they show that the federal law markers are seemingly lacking in institutional memories of even the progress made by the legislature in making laws to promote universal access to basic education,” he stated.
“Since each of the 36 States of the Federation has adopted the Child’s Rights Act and enacted a Child’s Right Law, it has become the joint responsibility of the Federal, State and Local Governments to ensure that every Nigerian child is given access free and compulsory education.”
Noting that individuals of the political class have failed to pay enough attention to basic education by failing to ensure that the counterpart fund required to be paid by states is paid to UBEC, he faulted the political class for not demonstrating any commitment to the education of every child in Nigeria.
“Hence, the members of the legislative and executive organs of governments have failed to appreciate the danger of having 18.5 million out-of-school children, the highest number in the world. Therefore, amending the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act to make it more strings for parents who will not work in a poverty-stricken environment.
“What the National Assembly should do instead is address the refusal of state governments to make counterpart contributions to the Universal Basic Education Fund pursuant to section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act.
“As a matter of urgency, the National Assembly should ensure the amendment of the Constitution to empower the Accountant-General of the Federation to deduct from the source the counterpart fund payable by every state government to the Universal Basic Education Fund,” Falana said.
