BREAKING: Niger govt clears N433m NECO, WAEC debt

The Niger state Ministry of Education says it has paid N433 million for the settlement of backlog debt owe to examination conducting organisations by the state.

The organisation includes the West Africa Examination Council National Examination Council and National Business and Technical Examinations Board.

Others are the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies and Basic Education Certificate Examination.

The state Commissioner for Education, Hajiya Hannatu Salihu, disclosed this during the presentation of the 2022 budget performance and screening of the 2023 budget allocation.

The ministry made the presentation to the state House of Assembly Committee on Education.

She said N7.3 billion was approved by the ministry as the capital budget for the basic and post-basic education sector out of which N2.2 billion was released indicating 39 per cent of allocation.

Salihu explained that out of the N2.5 billion recurrent expenditure approved for 2022, personnel cost was N1.2 billion and overhead was N.3 billion, adding that N1.6 billion and N622.4 million was released respectively.

“This represents a budget performance of 91 and 48 per cent for the personnel and overhead,” she said.

She disclosed that the 2022 budget was constrained by low release of funds, which affected the completion of ongoing projects, adding that allocation to the education sector was far below the 26 percent UNESCO recommendation.

She, however, said that the ministry recorded achievement in the Whole School Development Approach, capacity building training of Zonal Quantity Assurance Officers and generation of N14.8 million as IGR.

She said the ministry in collaboration with UNICEF spent N4.1 million on the implementation of back to school campaign and N2.2 million on the training of teachers on digital learning content development.

She added that N15.5 million was spent on the launching of Nigeria Learning Passport and N13.3 million on the LP-TRCN resilience training package for 675 teachers in 45 schools.

On the 2023 budget, Salihu said the budget seems to consolidate the gains recorded in 2022 and also improve access, equity, and quality education in the state.

She said N1.5 billion capital and N1.5 billion overhead have been estimated for 2023, adding that the fund would be utilised on the completion of all ongoing projects.

She added that it would also be used for the expansion and upgrading of existing infrastructure at basic and senior secondary levels of education in the state.