As the Federal Ministry of Education prepares to launch a new school curriculum this month, Assistant Editor Bola Olajuwon analyses the need to incorporate findings of Data Repository, Out-of-School Children Education, Teacher Training and Development, and Skill Development and Acquisition (DOTS) project to tackle the endemic challenges in the basic education level.
An educated society is crucial for economic growth. Countries with higher literacy rates, according to experts, also tend to be in better economic situations. With a more educated population, better behavioral dispositions and more employment opportunities are opened as citizens keep learning and researching to constantly stay innovative.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must have had this on his mind when he highlighted his administration’s commitment to improving the lives of Nigerians, particularly the students and youth, through various initiatives that promote education. He had also reiterated his administration’s commitment towards repositioning the education sector.
Last year, the President said the sector would get a comprehensive four-year strategic plan, serving as a roadmap for development. This, he said, would not only tackle the challenges confronting the sector but also shape the future of education in the country.
It was, therefore, not out of place when President Tinubu, as part of his eight-point agenda, decided to prioritise education by giving approval to the Federal Ministry of Education for a project called DOTS, an acronym for Data Repository, Out-of-School Children Education, Teacher Training and Development, and Skill Development and Acquisition.
DOTS is aimed at ensuring an overhaul of the sector for improved learning and skill development, increase enrolment, and ensure the academic security of children. DOTS is also designed for creation of a data repository to address the paucity of coordinated, verifiable and authentic data on all aspects of the education sector in Nigeria.
However, as the stakeholders are awaiting the report of DOTS, the Federal Ministry of Education said it is preparing to launch new school curriculum this month. One hopes that the DOTS initiative will strengthen the outlines of the new school curriculum.
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, who announced that a new school curriculum will take effect from this month, disclosed this to State House correspondents after President Bola Tinubu presided over the Federal Executive Council meeting at the presidential Villa. According to him, the new curriculum is aimed at both primary and secondary schools. It is designed to address the ongoing concerns surrounding the behaviour and values of young Nigerians.
Mamman said: “There is a general concern about the behaviour and conduct of our young ones in the country and our social values, and civic education is compulsory in secondary schools. But with all that, we still have some deterioration and serious concerns about our national values.
“So, we are rolling out a new curriculum for primary schools and secondary schools in Nigeria from this October, which is supposed to incorporate knowledge, skills and values, especially with a special focus on skills, so that our students, when they graduate, they will have skills that they can connect with the economy.”
But, stakeholders have been calling for tackling endemic issues affecting education in the country without which any new curriculum would die naturally.
Issues of out-of-school children and learning poverty
While a new curriculum for primary schools and secondary schools is desirable, it is relevant that the ministry must tackle the rising number of out-of-school children in the country. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), decrying the increase, stated that it is now 18.3 million.
UNICEF noted that this alarming figure positions Nigeria as the country with the highest number of out-of-school children globally.
The number of Out-of-School Children (OOSC) is constantly growing in Nigeria, rising from about 10.5 million in 2013 to about 18.3 million in 2024, despite many efforts to address the situation.
To address this challenge, UNICEF is collaborating with the Universal Basic Education Commission to develop the “National Framework of Action to Reduce the Number of Out-of-School Children in Nigeria” and the “Retention, Transition, and Completion Model”.
Also, with six years remaining before the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target date of 2030, Nigeria is among the many nations grappling with the task of achieving SDG 4—quality education for all.
According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 250 million children worldwide still lack access to good education.
In Nigeria, where children are in school, statistics indicate that they are often face with learning poverty, a measure of children’s inability to read and understand a simple text by age 10, the World Bank and UNESCO stated.
The 2022 UNICEF report on the State of Global Learning Poverty offers a grim picture of the increasing number of out-of-school children and of declining education systems, learning content and teaching methods. The report claims that 56 percent of children worldwide were suffering from learning poverty before COVID-19 hit—a staggering 89 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa—and this figure is predicted to have skyrocketed since the pandemic.
The United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria (PLANE) project set out in 2021 to tackle some of the root causes of learning poverty.
PLANE, which is a comprehensive programme that runs through 2028, operates at various levels, engaging with legislators, state and non-state education providers, civil society organisations, teachers’ unions, community leaders, learners, and parents. The programme is active at the federal level, in the Southeast and Southwest regions, and at the state level in five northern states (Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Yobe, and Borno).
PLANE is designed to improve students’ foundational skills, standardising primary education, and enhancing the quality of teaching.
Education policy
Education in Nigeria is a 6-3-3 system. The official primary school entrance age is six and the primary school cycle lasts six years, followed by three years of lower secondary education and three years of upper secondary education. Primary and lower secondary education are free and compulsory. Students sit for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE)/Junior Secondary School Examination at the end of grade 9 and those completing upper secondary school sit for Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE), which requires them to demonstrate their mastery of multiple subjects including English and Mathematics. According to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), in 2012 there were 59,382 primary schools in the country, and 11,561 lower secondary schools.
Critical stakeholders in the education sector have condemned the decision of the Federal Government to peg the age at which students can write the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations, SSCE, at 18, saying it will simply draw the education sector back. On the qualifying examination to enter tertiary institutions, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the nation is divided on directive to peg the age at 18 years.
Tahir had directed that from 2025, any candidate who is not up to 18 would not be allowed to write the examinations, and without doing so, such candidates won’t be able to seek admission to tertiary institutions.
The stakeholders who spoke against the policies included the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), the Congress of University Academics (CONUA), and others.
Teachers welfare
Teachers are central to effective and efficient learning. Despite the Federal Government’s increment of funding to Universal Basic Education (UBE) and Tertiary Education Trust Fund, state’s’ contributions have been comatose.
A media report indicated that all the tiers of government in the country will require at least N345 billion monthly to pay the new minimum wage for teachers in public primary and secondary schools, if the salary package proposed for teachers in the welfare scheme promised by the government in 2020 is to be fully implemented.
The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has about 2.3 million licensed teachers in its register who are mostly government employees, while the minimum wage proposed for teachers is N150,000 per month.
But, the unfavourable economic situation in the country has left the state and local governments foot-dragging on the issues that have financial implications for education.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari, who made the promise to teachers in 2020 to increase their welfare, only implemented the increment in the retirement age of teachers from 35 to 40 years of service and 60 to 65 years, whichever comes first. Only 15 of the 36 states in the country have jerked up the retirement age of teachers. Surprisingly, the Southwest region has not started implementing the new retirement age.
The Secretary General of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Dr. Mike Ene, said the union was frustrated by lack of progress in the implementation of the scheme for teachers.
Even, the Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission, Hamid Bobboyi, disclosed that over 30 per cent of the Nigeria’s teaching workforce left the service within the past three years.
UBEC and funding gap
To tackle the prevailing funding gap for infrastructure and others in the basic level of education, the Federal Government recently approved an upward review of the matching grants of state governments for infrastructural projects under the Universal Basic Education (UBE) to N3.5 billion.
The increase in matching grants is coming as UBEC Executive Secretary Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, in July, declared that over N45.7 billion in funds allocated for the implementation of UBE between 2020 and 2023 have not been accessed by many states.
According to the UBEC boss, 27 states failed to access over N45,730, 811,745 00 set aside by the Federal Government for basic education. The figures obtained from UBEC dated July 1, 2024, covered grants from 2020 – 2023, which the 27 states failed to provide the counterpart funds to access. On the non-payment of the counterpart funding, NAPTAN’s Deputy National President, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, wondered why the states are not paying up.
Ogunbanjo said: “If I bring 50 percent and then UBEC is also giving me 50 percent, why not? Then, it’s attractive to the states, meaning they are helping me, assisting me to fund education with my marching grants.
“You can only pay your marching grants to access it. Okay. The moment I pay my N3.5 billion, then they will now give me the projects and all that and add their own N3.5 billion.
“Great. We now know that at least N3.5 billion is there in the Federal Government’s coffers to be sent to each state of the federation as long as the state is also remitting its own N3.5 billion.”
He urged all state parent teacher associations, state education stakeholders, including the NUT, Nigerian conference of principals of secondary schools, head teachers association of Nigeria to ensure that they engage their various states to access the funds because education is paramount.
Language use and other solutions
Experts have also picked hole in language used for teaching – English. According to UNESCO, conducting classes in a child’s first language is optimal for literacy and learning throughout the primary school. Research shows that children whose first language is not their language of instruction are more likely to drop out or fail in early grades. While this discussion had been on for a while, nothing has come out of it.
Additional strategies include reviewing educational policies, providing support for learning disabilities, investing in technological and sporting resources, implementing safe school policies, and promoting education through various channels such as school-based management committees, religious bodies, scholarships, and teacher training.
Experts have indicated that foundational skills such as reading and solving basic math problems allow for cognitive development and acquisition of more complex skills. When a country fails to provide these skills to children in the first three years of schooling, learning becomes an increasingly frustrating experience. The consequence is high levels of dropout (42 per cent of students drop out between primary 1 and the first year of Junior Secondary School), fuelling the out of school problem.
Also is the quality of teachers. There are low levels of teacher competency and pedagogical skills. Fifty per cent of teachers in basic education in Nigeria, according to records, lack minimum teaching qualifications.
At this age where pupils and students globally are competing with experts in the area of computer software development, robotic research and development, among others, the education sector needs more effective and efficient planning and quality assurance at both level of public and private elementary schools.
