At the meeting of Coalition Interventions to Support Access and Quality of Education in Nigeria hosted by President Goodluck Jonathan at the Banquet Hall of the State House in Abuja, former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown announced Nigeria and Global Partnership for Education are committing additional resources of $500 million to support the development of universal basic education in Nigeria. President Jonathan also reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to the effective implementation of policies and measures that will ensure that the Nigerian youth receive qualitative education that will equip them with essential skills and competencies required by employers.

Brown said “The Federal Government of Nigeria has made available $250million for investment in education by the states. What we have managed to do by talking to the individual agencies over the last few days is to match that $250million by the additional $250million making possible new investment of $500million in education in Nigeria.” A breakdown of the funding given by Brown indicated that Global Partnership for Education and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have agreed to contribute $100 million each for the development of universal education while federal and state governments have already provided $250 million for the development of education in the country. “I believe that an additional cash transfer is for training, introduction of new technologies can now match the initiatives that have been taken by Mr. Dangote from the business community and other initiatives among five agencies.”

Brown added that Nigeria stands to benefit from a seven year term European Union (EU) grant that will be devoted to the development of education.