Frontline lawyer and Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola, SAN and energy law expert, Professor Damilola Olawuyi, SAN have called for increased budgetary allocation for education as a prerequisite for advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Nigeria.
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The duo made the submission in a pathbreaking study titled âAdvancing Environmental Education For Sustainable Development In Higher Education In Nigeria: Current Challenges And Future Directionsâ which was recently published by Sustainability, a high-impact international journal in Switzerland.
Drawing from his experience as a lawyer, educationist, farmer, and university administrator, Babalola noted that over the years, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recommended that governments should spend no less than 15-20 percent of yearly budgets on education. In Nigeria however, yearly budgetary allocations to education have been well below this recommended threshold. For example, in the 2017 budget, N448.01billion was allocated to education, representing only about 6 percent of the N7.30 trillion budget. The percentage of budgetary allocation to education has been further reduced in the 2021 budget. In the 2021 budget, only 5.6 percent of the N13.08 trillion budget was allocated for education, which represents the lowest percentage allocation since 2011. Babalola lamented that âWith many Universities struggling to meet their overhead cost, resource allocation for environmental awareness, climate change education and community engagement programs have been significantly impacted.â The erudite lawyer concluded.
The study, the very first to examine law and governance strategies for promoting environmental education as an enabler for sustainable development in Nigeria, recommended that an elaboration of coherent national strategy on environmental education; a dedicated budgetary allocation for environmental education programs; reform of the existing laws to ensure coherent implementation of environmental education programs; and the designation of focal SDG units at higher education institution are significant steps towards improving the development and implementation of environmental education and SDG programs in Nigeria.
On his part, Professor Damilola S. Olawuyi SAN, who is also co-chairman of the Legal Education Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), commended the uncommon vision and leadership of Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, whom he described as a tireless senior advocate for quality education in Nigeria. Olawuyi called on stakeholders in education to holistically mainstream SDG-related courses and programs as tools for boosting their internally generated revenue. According to him âthe increasing demand for SDG courses and programs in key sectors such as finance, management, law, engineering, petroleum, mining, and aviation, amongst others, mean that higher education institutions can explore innovative partnerships with professional bodies and industry organizations, such as the NBA, to understand and meet such training and certification needs.â  Olawuyi concluded.
The full article is available here: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10808/htm
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