Education sector crisis defies N4trn govt spending since 1999

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is experiencing an education sector crisis that is as old as the country’s return to democracy, 16 years ago, BusinessDay investigations have shown.

Since 1999, the sector has remained dysfunctional, despite almost N4 trillion in total budget allocations. This has left a bad taste in the mouths of Nigerians aspiring for good education in pursuit of quality of life.

According to a recent survey conducted by Lagos-based advisory firm, Phillips Consulting, Nigerians “are dissatisfied with the education sector” and believe the sector had negative impact on their general quality of life.

In 2014, the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination results showed less than one-third of Nigerian students attained the required five credits and above (including English and Mathematics). Similarly, bar examinations into the Nigerian Law School, in that same year, returned 4,883 students failed out of 6,883 sitting law students.

“So when we are silent about the poor WAEC results, we upgrade the failure to other levels”, says Yomi Fawehinmi, a human resource practitioner.

“The dysfunction is not an education crisis alone but a national crisis”, says one time education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, who has been at the frontline of a peaceful but resolute campaign for the rescue of over 219 school-age girls kidnapped from Chibok in Borno State, more than a year ago, a development some analysts regarded as another sign of a defective education system.

The inability of the Nigerian education system to guarantee employability and a living wage is evidenced by the army of unemployed youths in the country, who are mostly products of the nation’s ivory towers.

“By 2020, we may have a significant population of highly trained, skilled and motivated criminals,” Ezekwesili alerted delegates at the Nigerian economic summit on education in Abuja, last year.

Successive Nigerian governments, since 1999, have budgeted an average of N244 billion yearly for the education sector. This compares as 9 percent of the annual budgets versus a widely referenced UNESCO recommendation of 20 percent. 

A Safe Schools Initiative launched by former UK Prime Minister and UN special envoy for education, Gordon Brown, pledged $10 million initial investments to protect the right to education especially in northern Nigeria.

Yet, stakeholders say funding is not the problem neither is additional funding the solution to Nigeria’s worsening education crisis.

“This crisis is not all about funding,” says Ezekwesili.

“It is clear that increased funding per se has not translated into improved performance. As funding went up, performance declined,” she added.

 

Fawehinmi said in a phone interview with BusinessDay, “One thing the government should not do is to raise more money for education right now … the problem is not lack of money.”

“Making the teaching curriculum more practical and relevant to the needs of the country would solve a lot of the problems in the education sector”, according to Phillips Consulting’s report of a nationwide quality of life survey carried out early this year.

“Proposed solutions focus mainly on quality enhancement of the sector and include: adapting the teaching curriculum to societal needs, as well as, more effective supervision and monitoring …” the report concludes. 

Recent remarks by the vice president-elect, Yemi Osinbajo, suggest that the incoming government is thinking along these lines.

“We simply need to restructure the entire education value chain”, Osinbajo, a law professor, said at the Platform Nigeria event in Abuja on May 1, Workers’ Day.

“Anyone who goes to school today ought to be equipped to face the challenges of technology, numeracy skills, and critical thinking. 

“We need to teach new methods and teach the teachers themselves … so teacher training is big especially in … science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” Osinbajo said.

Nigeria’s education sector is valued at about N1.8 trillion in nominal terms, accounting for 2 percent of the GDP in 2014.

The sector generated 54,729 number of new jobs in the last quarter of 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.