President Muhammadu Buhari has again, condemned the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities , saying they are no less complicit in the corruption in tertiary education.
In a statement issued by Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, on Tuesday, the President said that corruption in education sector continues to undermine investments, while critics downplay funding by focusing only on budgetary allocations, urging a more comprehensive re-evaluation of expenditure.
Declaring open the Fourth National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector at the State House, Buhari noted that measuring financing of education sector should include total education budget of each year by both federal and state budgets and other financial commitments in their totality.
The Summit was organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Office of Secretary to Government of the Federation (OSGF) and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
He said that incessant strikes especially by unions in the tertiary education often imply that government is grossly underfunding education, but he opined that corruption in the education system from basic level to the tertiary level has been undermining their investment in the sector and those who go on prolonged strikes on flimsy reasons are no less complicit.
He pointed out that the 1999 Constitution places a premium on education by placing it on the Concurrent List, thereby laying the responsibilities of budgeting and underwriting qualitative education on both the Federal and State Governments.
To that effect, he said that the allocation to education in the federal budget should not be considered via allocation to the Federal Ministry of Education and also academic institutions alone, but should include allocation to the Universal Basic Education, transfers to TETFUND and refund from the Education Tax Pool Account to TETFUND.
