Distributes 10,000 textbooks to 5,000 students
The Senate Majority Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, has assured Nigerians that the 10th National Assembly would accord the education sector priority in the 2024 budget.
He lamented the recurrent Federal Government’s negation of the 26 per cent prescribed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as budgetary funding to the sector, describing this as the greatest undoing of education in the country.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) senator, representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District, stressed that the measure remains the best way to rescue education from total collapse, and make it functional as a potent weapon to combat poverty.
Bamidele said this in Aramoko-Ekiti, Ekiti West Local Council yesterday while distributing 10,000 textbooks to 5,000 students across 50 secondary schools from his senatorial district.
He said the free textbooks were meant to propel education in Ekiti State that is widely revered as the Fountain of Knowledge, through enhancement of students’ knowledge in English Language and Mathematics.
The lawmaker commended Governor Biodun Oyebanji for his commitment to reposition education in Ekiti State via recruitment of adequate manpower to strengthen the sector.
The senator, who was represented by his senior legislative aide, Bunmi Oguntuase, expressed pleasure over a statement credited to President Bola Tinubu that proper funding of education remains a top priority of his government.
The lawmaker maintained that Tinubu’s friendly posture to education would complement the position being espoused by the Godswill Akpabio-led Senate that the sector must be funded properly to benefit Nigeria.
He said: “Education remains a leveler between the children of the rich and poor in any society. It is the most potent instrument we can use to combat poverty and insecurity. This has been the position of President Tinubu and the current Senate.
“The major focus of the Akpabio-led Senate is to ensure the sector is properly funded. No country can advance beyond the level of its available human resources and the only way our human resources can be polished and made productive, is through qualitative education.
“So, the current Senate won’t compromise on adequate budgetary funding for education. No nation jokes with education and witness economic advancement. It is the major impetus to bolster radical development in any developing economy like ours.
“We are also happy that President Tinubu had demonstrated his love for the sector by signing the students’ loan into law. This gave an inkling into how desirous he is to fund education.”
