It is another election cycle in Nigeria and political candidates are out with their manifestos on what they intend to do if voted into power.
After careful observation, it has been noted that candidates have not been entirely specific with their plans for education – a critical sector that has experienced a tragic decline over the last two decades.
According to a statement released by the Joint Education Stakeholders Action Coalition (JESAC), the majority of education manifestos so far released by candidates for presidential, governorship and legislative polls hide behind scant generalisations and provide no specific reform initiatives for addressing specific aspects of the challenges in education.
As a result, these generalisations make it difficult to assess the levels of performance or non-performance of elected candidates.
Education challenges
Education in Nigeria is faced with a plethora of challenges ranging from poor funding to lack of infrastructure in schools, politicisation of the sector, lack of teaching aids in classrooms, unstable curriculum, strike actions by university lecturers, lack of good teachers’ welfare, unaffordable education; and the list goes on.
Nigeria at the moment has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, as the latest data from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) shows that about 18.5 million children, the majority of whom are girls, do not have access to education in Nigeria.
Figures from the UN agency also show that over 60 percent of these children are in the country’s northern region.
In the same vein, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) announced in 2022 that the country has about 20 million out-of-school children.
Nigeria, in 2015, signed a commitment to achieve Goal-4, Target-1, of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ by 2030.
Unfortunately, due to low funding for basic education in the country, Nigeria is unlikely to achieve that goal.
Election manifestos and education
An analysis of manifestos of political parties by JESAC confirms relative neglect for education compared to the detailed attention being accorded to other sectors like health, agriculture, security and economy.
The analysis shows that out of a total of 573 pages of manifestos issued by 16 participating political parties published on the website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), only a total of 38 pages (6.6 percent) are dedicated to education.
JESAC is the action coalition of concerned education stakeholders with a membership profile of over 30 million citizens that includes parents, students, staff, leaders, professionals and other citizens.
Furthermore, the analysis reveals that the strategies outlined in the manifestos fall short of clear, bold, courageous, visionary and out-of-the-box action plans needed to successfully address the challenges faced in the education sector.
According to JESAC, the trend of 2023 election campaigns, which commenced on 28 September, 2022, suggests that political parties and their candidates are shunning education and also showing contempt and disregard for education stakeholders.
One of the revealing indications of neglect of the education sector and disregard of education stakeholders in the politics of 2023 elections is the response of parties to the eight-month ASUU strike.
All parties submitted their manifestos before 28 September, 2022, when the strike was still on.
What education stakeholders want
As of 03 November, 2022, 409 education stakeholders signed the online petition for parties and candidates to the 2023 elections to provide detailed education reform manifestos.
Recently, students of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria, which constitute over 40 percent of education stakeholders, signed the online petition launched by JESAC on 14 October, 2022, calling on candidates to provide details of their proposed education reform initiatives.
Stakeholders are asking candidates to provide their detailed plans for addressing incessant strikes, extortion of tertiary students by lecturers, cultism, sex for grade, and so on.
Calls to action
Candidates need to provide details of proposed reform initiatives to enable objective choice for citizens on those to support and vote for as well as establish performance benchmarks against which elected candidates will be held accountable after taking office.
Candidates should also sign off on their education reform manifestos to provide assurance of seriousness to deliver and assurance that their manifestos are not just an election period political gimmick for winning over education votes as has been the case.
Citizens and education stakeholders need to engage potential political leaders now because after the election will be too late.
Photo source: UNICEF
