The Federal Government is planning to spend N779m on insurance and warm clothing on 557 postgraduate students on foreign scholarships in 2015, according to the Ministry of Education budget proposal.
The ministry proposed a total of N492bn comprising N472bn for recurrent and N20bn total capital for the 2015 fiscal year.
A breakdown of the budget indicates that each of the 557 students would get $450 for insurance and clothing, while 123 others would get $1,000 allowance for passages.
The allocation, described as ongoing, is for the Bilateral Educational Agreement scholars in Russia, China, Cuba, Romania, Turkey and others.
In addition, N200m was budgeted for allowances, medicals, airfares, visa fees, reciprocal awards to BEA scholars, conduct of selection interviews in the 36 states and the FCT, adverts, production of question papers and answer sheets.
This came as the government also proposed to pay N520m insurance premium for buildings, fixtures and equipment at the nation’s 104 Unity Colleges against fire outbreaks.
The premium was fixed at N5m per school, according to the budget proposal.
Another lump sum of N30m was also proposed to ascertain the real economic value of the physical infrastructure of the schools.
This, according to the budget proposal, “is in line with the new insurance policy against fire and peril incidence in each school at N180.723 per officer.”
This is against the backdrop of the insurance cover for pupils of the unity colleges estimated at N625m, which parents and guardians have kicked against.
The ministry also plans to expend another N700m on capacity building for teachers and monitoring activities in the unity colleges as part of an ongoing project.
The sum of N500m would also be expended on the implementation of International Public Sector Account Standard in the schools.
The ministry also budgeted N55m for hosting the annual World Teachers Day (ongoing) and N100m for special scholarship award programme for sustainability of girl-child education in Nigeria.
The conduct of impact assessment survey of the Millennium Development Goals in the education sector (2006-2014), including production of document analysis and distribution is to gulp N17m in 2015.
In order to ascertain the number of unity school students, the FME plans to spend N5m on a head count of the student population, as part of the MDGs project.
For guidelines for the establishment of private secondary schools in North-Central, South-West and South-East, the ministry allocated N13 million while N15m was proposed for data verification exercise in unity schools.
The FME also budgeted N160m for servicing 547 of the 851 awards made in 2012 by the Federal Government to 407 university students at 11 per state at the rate of N150,000 per scholar.
Similarly, it proposed 185 polytechnic students (five per state) at N100,000 per scholar, 185 colleges of education students (five per state) at N100,000 per scholar and 74 post-graduate students (two per state) at N180,000 per scholar.
In addition, another sum of N60m was also budgeted for scholarship awards, administration and processing of 441 scholarships for polytechnic students at five per state at N100,000 per scholar, 185 Colleges of Education students (five per state) at N100,000 per scholar and 74 postgraduate students (two per state) at N180,000 per scholar.
The (ongoing) coordination, monitoring and tracking of MDGs projects and programmes by the MDG secretariat was billed to gulp N60m while student population monitoring in unity schools by budget officers for the generation of database for meal subsidy budget purposes was estimated at N12m.
Furthermore, (ongoing) inspection of account books of the unity schools by the department of finance and accounts is to take N60m.
A whopping N240m was allocated for contribution to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
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