Call for more funds in education budget

Addressing media in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Hakielimu executive director John Kalage said the government should allocate 20 per cent of its total budget in the education sector during 2016/2017 fiscal year.

According to Hakielimu, every year the government should allocate 1,034.5bn/- for implementation of free education apart from other needs of the sector.
He said the fund is according to the number of students, schools and demands.

“We recommend the government to make sure that the education budget gets sufficient funds to execute free education effectively,” he said.

He said that to implement free education, the government should allocate 161.5bn/- to cover school fees and subsidies for primary and secondary schools.

He added that the government should also allocate enough funds to cover costs for improving education infrastructure.

“As the cost of constructing classes is very high, the government can divide it into to three phases within three years,” he said, adding that if the government will do so the cost of infrastructure for the financial year 2016/17 will be 671bn/-.

According to Kalage, for many years the education budget has failed to consider equal ratio between ordinary demands and development demands.

He said that in the past five years the average of funds allocated for development in the sector was 11 to 16 per cent while that of normal uses was 80 to 90 per cent.

“The amount which is allocated for development issues is very low compared to development challenges such as shortage of classrooms, teacher’s houses, toilets, laboratories and hostels,” he noted.

He noted that in 2015/16 the education budget was 3,887bn/- where funds allocated for development were 604bn/-, equal to 16 per cent while normal uses was 3,282bn/- equivalent to 84 per cent of all the budget of the sector.

“We ask the government to take immediate action to address the situation because funds allocated for development activities in the sector do not meet the real demand,” he said.