A former Ambassador to the Philippines, Dr. Yemi Farounbi, the chairman of the 1985 set of Oke’Badan High School, Oluyoro Oke-Offa, Ibadan (OHSOSA), Alhaji Wasiu Abiola, and an alumnus of the school, Chief Niyi Aborisade, on Monday called for more budgetary allocation for the education sector, particularly secondary education.

They stated that secondary education is the bedrock of any nation that wants meaningful development.
Speaking in Ibadan at the 40-year Post-Graduation and Old Boys’ Reunion Day of the 1985 set of the school, Farounbi lamented that poor funding is one of the problems facing the education sector in Nigeria.

The statesman stated that Nigeria needs to increase its level of funding for education nationwide so that it can have a meaningful impact on its citizens.

He said, “Poor funding is also a result of poor policies. If we accept that education is the primary foundation of everything we do in Nigeria, then we must allocate more resources to it. We ought to allocate 25 per cent of our budget to education, but Nigeria is currently spending less than 10 per cent of that, which will result in poor infrastructure in our schools.

Abiola said that for Nigeria to improve in terms of human development, there is a need to prioritise primary and secondary school education through adequate funding, adding that Nigerians must come together to ensure an improvement in the quality of secondary education.
He said: “The coming together of this set 40 years after we have left the school was to see how we can support each other and complement the efforts of the government to improve the status of our alma mater.

“Old students must also join hands with the government to ensure improvement in our schools. We are the first set of students who benefited from Bola Ige’s UPN free education programme in 1985. We have now come of age. We want to dialogue and brainstorm on issues affecting Nigeria’s education sector, particularly secondary education, which is the bedrock for education for many people, because we are not happy with the state of our secondary schools.”

On his part, Aborisade emphasised that secondary school is the bedrock of a nation because some students may not proceed to University.