Nigeria and Italy have strengthened collaboration to implement the proposed Global Partnership for Education (GPE) financing campaign targeted at mobilising five billion dollars for education financing worldwide.

President Bola Tinubu, in a video message, said the GPE vision aligns with Nigeria’s agenda to improve educational outcomes by investing in access and teacher capacity building. Mr Tinubu stated this on Wednesday in New York, United States, during the Multiply Possibility High-level event.

The event, ‘A New Era for Education Financing’, was held on the margins of the ongoing 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Vice-President Kashim Shettima noted that education was an investment in Nigeria’s economic future, productivity and the prosperity and stability of its citizens. Mr Shettima stressed that it was not merely an expense at the margins of the country’s development agenda.

“For Nigeria, education is not an expenditure at the margins of our development agenda. It is an investment in our economic future, national productivity, and the prosperity and stability of our people.

“Since Tinubu assumed office in 2023, our administration has substantially increased resources devoted to education, while pursuing reforms to strengthen basic education financing, expand foundational learning, and improve access to tertiary and technical education,” he said.

Mr Shettima said the Nigerian Education Loan Fund had widened access to higher education and strengthened the link between education, skills, employment and enterprise.

Mr Shettima said Nigeria was also looking beyond traditional budgetary allocations. He said that Tinubu had directed that liquid funds recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, once legally cleared and free from litigation, be channelled to the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.

He said that the Federal Executive Council recently approved consideration of unclaimed dividends and dormant funds for the same purpose, subject to the relevant legal requirements. This, Mr Shettima explained, demonstrated the nation’s conviction that financing education needed mobilisation of every responsible and lawful domestic source available.

Citing Nigeria’s alliances with the World Bank and GPE through HOPE-EDU, the vice-president underscored what international partnership could achieve. According to him, the programme is expected to reach approximately 29 million children and 500,000 teachers across Nigeria.

“This is precisely why GPE matters. GPE does not replace national investment; it multiplies it. The ambition before us is to mobilise five billion dollars for GPE and, through that investment, unlock additional financing for education in partner countries,” Mr Shettima explained. “Domestic resources must remain the anchor, complemented by development assistance, concessional finance, philanthropy and innovative financing.”

(NAN)