The Nigeria Union of Teachers has knocked state governments over the poor funding of primary school education in the country.
The union said it was alarmed by revelations from the Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission, Dr. Suleiman Dikko, that states could not match the 40 per cent Federal Government grant allocated for the implementation of Universal Basic Education programmes in states.
The NUT Secretary-General, Obong Obong, in a statement on Friday in Abuja, said the union considered the development a serious indictment on the states, stressing that this best described the lack of concern by them in the development of public primary education in the country.
This, it added, explained why Nigeria could not meet the expected target of 'Education for all by 2015.'
Over the years, the NUT noted, the FG had set aside 2 per cent of its Consolidated Revenue Fund to improve public primary education in the country, describing as regrettable, the states' inability to access their allocation, owing to failure to provide needed matching grants as their requisite counterpart funding.
The union described it as a disservice to the development of primary education across the country, adding that the situation had degenerated to a point where school pupils in some states receive their lessons under trees.
The NUT stated that with the increasing demand for quality education and infrastructural development in schools, the reluctance of state governments to access UBE fund and use same for what it was meant for, is a demonstration of gross negligence of their responsibility for the improvement of education in Nigeria.
It said, "The union hereby calls on all state governors to take urgent steps to access the available funds lying idle at the UBE Commission and use same to address the problems in their primary schools.
"It is only by so doing that they would have shown some level of concern towards the upliftment of the status of primary education in Nigeria."
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