The federal government’s plan to ‘migrate’ to 12 years of compulsory education in Nigeria while maintaining the current 6-3-3 structure is commendable.
Development Diaries reports that Nigeria’s Ministry of Education has announced a proposal seeking to ‘migrate’ to 12 years of compulsory education.
This reform move aligns with the long-standing advocacy efforts of civil society groups, including the over 100 CSOs in the National Working Group on Basic Education, who have worked tirelessly for an amendment to the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act (2004).
However, for this reform to have a meaningful impact, there are legal, financial, and operational bottlenecks that have historically hindered basic education in Nigeria that must be addressed.
According to research, countries implementing a 12-year free education system, such as Kenya and Ghana, achieve better enrolment, retention, and learning outcomes than Nigeria.
Unfortunately, Nigeria continues to maintain the gloomy record of having more than 13.2 million out-of-school children, the greatest number in the world, despite the UBE Act of 2004’s goal of providing free education up to junior secondary school.
History has proven that policy innovations without robust enforcement mechanisms rarely provide the intended outcomes in Nigeria.
Hence, the current challenge is to make sure that this policy proposal does not go in the same direction.
The first critical step to be considered is to review the law to specifically guarantee the right to free and mandatory 12-year education. The UBE Act as it is now only allows for nine years of education, and its enforcement procedures are still weak.
To make this reform work, the first urgent step is a legal amendment to explicitly guarantee the right to free and compulsory 12-year education.
Without a legal framework backing this policy, implementation will likely be inconsistent across states, leaving millions of children behind.
The issue of funding is also a pressing concern that needs to be addressed for this policy to be successful. Inadequate funding and state-level inefficiencies are currently the largest obstacles to UBE implementation.
Due to the strict counterpart funding requirement, which requires states to contribute 50 percent of funding before they can get federal assistance, more than N135 billion in UBE funds are still unaccessed.
This restriction has left many states unable to fully benefit from federal education grants, creating inequities in educational quality.
Furthermore, in addition to inadequate finance, Nigeria’s educational system lacks accountability and transparency, especially within the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs).
Effective resource management has been lacking in many states, which has resulted in corruption and inefficiencies that threaten the provision of basic education.
Development Diaries calls on the National Assembly to pass a revised UBE Act that extends compulsory education to 12 years and enforces penalties for states that fail to meet their funding obligations.
Also, to address the problem of funding, the government should reduce the counterpart funding requirement for accessing UBE funds from 50 percent to 30 percent and diversify education financing by integrating contributions from the Education Trust Fund, Petroleum Trust Fund, and private sector partnerships.
Finally, to address the problem of transparency and accountability within the system, the Education Minister should mandate that each state creates operational School Management Committees (SMCs) with representatives from civil society, community members, and teacher representatives.
Photo source: Tunji Alausa
