Enugu State has allocated a budget of N12,26 billion for its education sector, an amount that is about 74 percent above that of last year which was N7,04 billion. This was made known during the 2021 budget breakdown presented to journalists at the NUJ press centre by David Okelue Ugwunta the state commissioner of Budget and Planning.
The state Commissioner for Education, Uche Eze said the increase was to take proper care of all the institutions and enhance the standard of learning and education in the state.
The Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board (ESUBEB) got the highest budgetary allocation of N8 billion followed by the state Polytechnic Iwollo, University of Science and Technology (ESUT) which got N517.25 million among many other educational institutions that received reasonable budgetary percentages above what was allocated to them in 2019’s budget.
Meanwhile, the Enugu University of Education (EUOE) was surprisingly left out of the 2021 budget allocation. The university located at Ihe in Awgu Local Government Area of the state was established by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
Read Also: Criticism, applause trail FG’s proposed N5000 to indigent Nigerians
The absence of the institution from the state’s budget in 2020 and 2021 state appropriation bills has raised doubts in some quarters about the government’s sincerity in establishing the institution as a full university of education as proposed. Some are asking if the government’s intension was rather to make it a Faculty of Education in the State University of Science and Technology as is being rumoured.
But Eze, the Commissioner for Education said the university was in the heart of the governor and that work was ongoing at the site. He pointed out that the law establishing the University of Education has not been passed by the State House of Assembly.
It will be recalled that last year. a group of people from Ihe community who are living outside the country, IHE Shigaguma donated a faculty building to the University to encourage the efforts of the state government in establishing the University, and appealed to the government to enact the law.
At the ground-breaking ceremony of the faculty building State University of Education, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuani was represented by the Commissioner for Education, Eze, and also Fidelia Njezeh, the chairman of the university board, promised that the law establishing the university has been worked out, and would soon be passed by the State House of Assembly after the final work by the state attorney general.
