With few weeks to the end of the current administration, stakeholders have urged the incoming governments at federal and state levels to tackle the challenges in the education system after swearing in, Assistant Editor Bola Olajuwon reports
Few days ago, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the bill seeking to make basic education the right of every child. Falana, in a statement, said it is the fundamental right of every citizen to enjoy free and compulsory education. According to him, it is unacceptable that little attention is paid to the basic education bill, which is among those not assented to by the President recently.
Basing his call on Nigeria’s figure of out-of-school children, which he noted, remains the highest in the world, he said: “Sometime in January 2023, the National Assembly forwarded 35 constitutional amendment bills to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent.
“For reasons best known to him, the President assented to 16 out of the 35 bills. Out of the 16 approved by the President, seven amended the names of some local government areas by correcting typographical errors.
“It is sad to note that while a section of the media and advocates of restructuring have celebrated these amendments, no attention has been paid to the refusal of President Buhari to assent to the constitution (Fifth Alteration) bill No. 63 (fundamental human rights) which seeks to alter the provisions of the constitution to make free, compulsory, and basic education a fundamental right of all citizens under chapter IV of the constitution.”
Falana is not alone on the need to invest in education, which UNICEF Nigeria Representative Cristian Munduate on the International Day of Education also described as investing in Nigerian children.
Munduate, on January 24, the International Day of Education, advised the Federal Government to “invest in people, prioritise education” and deliver on the commitments made by President Muhammadu Buhari at the UN Secretary General’s Transforming Education Summit in September, 2022, to end the global learning crisis.
Issues at stake
Essentially, the UNICEF Nigeria Representative stressed that 75 per cent of children aged 7 to 14 years cannot read a simple sentence or solve a basic math problem. For children to be able to read to learn, they must be able to learn to read in the first three years of schooling.
“I commit UNICEF’s support to the government of Nigeria to transform education and to prevent the loss of hard-fought gains in getting children into school, particularly poor, rural children and girls, and ensuring that they remain in school, complete their education and achieve to their full potential,” the UN official said.
Flowing from the counsel above, Munduate called on presidential candidates to include adequate investments in education as a top priority in their manifestos.
Falana’s and Munduate’s concerns arise from the fact that Nigeria is not winning the out-of-school war with the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria rising to 20 million.
Stakeholders have equally queried why the nation’s education system had defied many interventions in the past.
Education Minister Adamu Adamu, in May 2019, when he was completing his first term, said the status of Nigeria having the highest number of out-of-school children globally “was a big mark of shame to him as a person and to the entire nation”.
The minister had lamented his inability to fulfill his promise to reduce the number of out-of-school children by half before the end of his tenure.
Adamu had said the concerns of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration had been “to find an empirical means of getting the actual figures and best ways to reduce the number to the barest minimum”.
“However, I must apologise for the inability to fulfill my promise but I believe the new minister will bring this number down,” he said.
With barely six weeks to the end of the current administration, free education, more funds for education, high number of out-of-school children, learning crisis, and tackling strikes by unions on campuses are issues incoming administrations at Federal and state levels will contend with in the face of dwindling revenues to implement the manifestoes they presented to the public.
The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, during his campaign promised to bring reforms to Nigeria’s education sector from the basic to the tertiary level.
Tinubu said his administration, if elected, would review the education curriculum at all levels “to suit the emerging global best practices and current socio-economic realities.”
Tinubu, who acknowledged that the nation’s education sector suffers from a funding deficit, promised to provide the required leadership and mobilise investment for the development of the sector.
He said the funding needs of tertiary education would be met by working with stakeholders to evolve creative solutions “that will bring terminal end to challenges of funding and the attendant perennial industrial actions.”
However, a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, in partnership with Global Education Monitoring Report, showed that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria had risen to 20 million from about 12.5 million recorded in 2021. The data showed that sub-Saharan Africa remained the region with the highest out-of-school children.
The introduction of the Better Education Service Delivery For All (BESDA), targeted at reducing the figures of out-of-school children in the country, seemed not to have reduced the figures.
The report stated: “Nigeria holds the unenviable position of being the country with the largest population of out-of-school children of primary school age: 9.6 million in 2020, up from 6.4 million in 2000 and 7.5 million in 2010. The number of out-of-school children continues to rise.”
This sparked calls for an urgent intervention by the government to arrest the situation so that the pupils can return to school.
What is responsible for the rise in figures?
Communication Specialist, UNICEF Nigeria, Dr. Geoffrey Njoku, said the 5.3 million students affected by the closure of 11,536 schools in 2021 were responsible for the significant increase in the number of out-of-school children from about 15 million in 2021 to 20 million.
This was followed by the rising insecurity in the country, especially in the northern parts of Nigeria, which has the highest number of out-of-school.
Some of the major school abductions include April 14, 2014, kidnap of 276 school girls in Chibok, Borno State; another 300 pupils from Damasak, Borno State; 110 pupils from Dapchi, Yobe State; 344 pupils from Kankara, Katsina State; 276 pupils from Jangebe, Zamfara State; 140 students from Chikun in Kaduna State; and 102 pupils from Yauri, Kebbi State.
Dr. Njoku said: “As a precautionary measure, a total of 11,536 schools were closed for specific periods in 2021, with 5,330,631 students affected – whose schooling was disrupted and learning severely impacted.
“When schools are attacked, children and parents begin to see them as places of danger. The damage is tremendous – making parents afraid to send their children to school and affecting the mental health of children. Those directly impacted are traumatised and are slow to recover from the shock of an attack on their school.”
Figures remain high in northern states despite UBEC interventions
Despite accessing all their funds for basic education from the Universal Basic Education Commission, most northern states continue to boast of high figures when it comes to issues of out-of-school in Nigeria. According to the 2021 Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey 6 (MICS 6), the highest out-of-school rates are found in Kebbi (65 per cent), Zamfara (61 per cent) and Bauchi (61 per cent). While the lowest rates are found in Ekiti (two per cent), and Imo (one per cent).
At a two-day media dialogue on MICS 6 results, in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, UNICEF’s Chief of Measurement for Results (M4R), Claes Johanson, noted that the share of children that are out-of-school in primary schools was still 25 per cent. The MICS 6 was carried out in 2021 by the National Bureau of Statistics as part of the global MICS programme. It covered 39,632 households.
Poverty, lack of investment in basic education responsible for rising figures
In Kebbi State, the Programme Assistant on Education, Youthhub Africa, Peter Ogah, linked the rising figures in the state to increase in poverty.
Ogah said: “A key contribution to this for me is the increase in poverty rate (parents preferring to survive than send their wards to school), very low quality of teaching, and a gradual decline in interest for education. Kebbi for instance is not plagued with insecurity as the other states, but yet has an alarming figure.
“I had a conversation with a parent and traditional rulers while in Kebbi and he said he would rather send his wards to neighbouring states where the academic standard is high than have them study in Kebbi State.
“Based on UBEC’s guideline, a huge chunk of the fund accessed are used for renovation and construction with just a fraction going into teachers’ training and retraining, robust curriculum development and other factors that truly drive the quality of education in a state.”
Head Tracka, BudgIT Foundation, Uadamen Ilevbaoje, carpeted governors over low investments in basic education.
He noted that most state governors, who access UBEC funds for basic education, end up diverting the funds into something else.
Govt’s reaction
When the report was released, the Federal Government disagreed with the UN agency about the 20 million figure of out-of-school children.
The Director of Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education, Benjamin Goong, said: “The Federal Ministry of Education conducts annual school census and let me tell you the template we use. From the National Population Commission, we get the birth rate. When we get the birth rate from NPC and we do our school census. The birth rate tells us how many children are born in Nigeria every year. The school census tells us how many are in school. When we minus the birth rate from how many that are in school, then we say the rest are not in school.
“We have these schools, we reach them, we conduct these school census and we go to NPC and work on this template and come up with the figures. Where UNESCO is getting its own figures? I don’t know.”
Alarming numbers of unqualified teachers
The roles of teachers in shaping the future of tomorrow’s leaders are important and that’s why Teachers Professional Development programmes are vital to the teaching profession. It helps to enhance the capacities of teachers to deliver quality teaching to pupils.
According to the National Personnel Audit of the Universal Basic Education Commission 2018, the quality of teachers is in short supply across all educational levels and incoming governments must tackle this fast.
According to UBEC, 27 per cent of the teaching staff in the country is unqualified. The commission noted that in the North East, there is 33 per cent unqualified teachers and in the North West, we have 39 per cent unqualified teachers.
The lack of quality teachers has further fuelled the learning crisis in the country. According to the World Bank, about 70 per cent of pupils in the age bracket of 10 are not learning.
The bank noted that, globally, 125 million children are not acquiring functional literacy or numeracy, even after spending at least four years in school.
University unions’ crisis
Last year was dominated by the strike by the four university-based unions – the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU); the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU); the Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Education Institutions (NASU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).
On February 14, ASUU’s leadership declared a four-week warning strike, which was subsequently extended. The union was soon followed by the other three university-based unions. But after a series of meeting with the Federal Government team, the three other university-based unions – NAAT, SSANU and NASU called off their strike.
For ASUU, what started as a warning strike soon snowballed into an indefinite one, crippling academic activities in the nation’s public universities.
ASUU on one side insisted that the Federal Government must meet its agreements on funding for the revitalisation of public universities, payment of earned academic allowances, reconstitution of the FGN/ASUU 2009 Renegotiation Committee, University Transparency Accountability Solution, UTAS, and withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off due. The Federal Government on the other side insisted that most of the demands had been met and only refused to pay the union their salary for not working for six months, a decision that led to further extension of the strike by the union. The university lecturers insisted on the full implementation of their demands.
There were a series of meetings between the government team and the leadership of ASUU. At some point, negotiations between the leadership of ASUU broke down.
But after a series of meetings with the leadership of ASUU, Adamu found out that reaching an agreement with ASUU was not going to come easy.
The minister failed to bring the crisis to an end after assuring President Buhari of his resolve to end the strike.
Ngige entered into the fray again. The minister invoked the powers conferred on him by the Trade Dispute Act and referred the matter to the National Industrial Court.
The industrial action was an offshoot of the alleged failure of the Federal Government to fully implement the 2020 Memorandum of Action after the union called off its strike in December of the same year.
The union had protested the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to migrate all public service workers to IPPIS. After few years on the platform, ASUU began to develop resistance to IPPIS. It cited irregularities in the payment platform for the resistance.
The union proposed UTAS as an alternative platform for the payment of salaries for its members following discrepancies it highlighted in the use of IPPIS.
Stakeholders speak
Already, tTof the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), Haruna Danjuma, said the incoming administrations should focus on education.
“He (the new president) should focus attention on education as it is the bedrock of the development of any country. Without quality education, other sectors such as health would suffer. We expect the new president to focus on education. The rot is too great to be ignored. We also expect a lasting solution to the issue of strikes by university teachers and workers. The issues involved must be resolved and no recurrence of such again. Basic education must also not be neglected.
“It is the products from that level that go to tertiary institutions and once they are not good, there is little that can be done to remedy the situation at higher levels. Teachers must be motivated and infrastructure improved on,” he said.
In his contribution, Deputy National President, National Parents-Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), Chief Adeolu Ogunbanjo, said: “The strikes are becoming too worrisome. The development does not portray the country in good light before the international community.”
Secretary General of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Dr. Mike Ene noted that any nation that hoped to be competitive globally should not toy with education and the welfare of teachers.
“If we want to move forward, we must take education serious. Budgetary allocations to the sector must be real and let there be massive recruitment of teachers. Teachers are the heart of the sector. Some states have not recruited teachers for about 10 years now. Public university workers must also be taken care of.”
The National President of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) Dr. Niyi Sunmonu, called for better welfare packages for lecturers among others.
“What we earn now is not enough to take anybody home. There should be an improvement on that. Also, there should be policies that will ensure an uninterrupted academic calendar. A situation whereby lecturers and university workers are forced to go on strike and thereby disrupt the system is not good. It doesn’t allow for collaboration with foreign lecturers.
“There is no doubt that the sector should be made better to attract foreign students and lecturers like we used to have in those days. Nigeria is losing out in the global education market. We can earn foreign exchange by attracting foreign students. All over the world, foreign students pay higher than indigenes and universities, and even governments make money from that.
“We can attract foreign students when our schools are well-equipped and the standard is high. We already have the required manpower, it is only the facilities that we need to improve on. The new leader must not pay lip service to education. He cannot afford to pretend that all is well,” he stated.
Also, Chairman of ASUU, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, who is also a member of the National Executive Council of ASUU, Prof. Gbolahan Bolarin, urged Tinubu to treat academics with “utmost respect”.
Bolarin, in a statement, also advised the former Lagos State governor to ensure that university education becomes a priority, urging the incoming government not to emulate President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
He noted that the first thing expected from the next President was making university education a priority.
