Nigeria, Oct. 27 -- The allocation to education in the 2022 budget proposal shows President Muhammadu Buhari has taken small steps towards fulfilling his pledge to increase expenditure on education by 50 per cent between 2022 and 2023.

But despite the increase over last year's figures, the proposal, when measured as a percentage of the total spending plan, falls short of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) benchmark of 15 to 20 per cent of the annual budget which the president recently committed to achieving.

Three months ago, at the 2021 edition of the global summit on education co-hosted in London by the United Kingdom's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Mr Buha...