Conference recommends free education at all levels

By Patrick Andrew

Delegates to the National Conference yesterday voted overwhelmingly for the federal government to make free and compulsory education including adult education programme available for all Nigerians.

The delegates, who were voting on the provisions and respective amendments of the recommendations of the Committee on Law and Judiciary said that the provision of a section of the 1999 constitution that the federal government should provided free education where necessary be expunged.

Accordingly, delegates said free education for all citizens plus adult education programmes be made a constitutional provision to ensure all Nigerians enjoy the provision from the primary, school and tertiary institutions.

At present, some states are offering free education services to its citizens from primary to secondary school while a few have added the tertiary institution. Akwa Ibom, Kano, Imo are some of the states that have made free education compulsory. In Imo, governor Rochas Okorocha has made tertiary education free for its citizens.

But the conference does not want free education policy merely a matter of choice by the respective states but a matter of compulsory national policy and enjoyed by every citizen. Besides, the confab wants the right to free education extended to adults who may have chosen improve their educational status.

Peoples Daily recalls that the conference had before now debated on the policy of state on education arguing that being the bedrock of nation building, whatever policy adopted should be uniform to ensure all parts of the country benefits from it.

During the debate, delegates had looked at the huge disparity between states and insisted that the federal government must adopt a policy that would allow for the bridge of existing disparity and thus lower the number of educational disadvantage state.