In December 2022, a coalition of over 100 development partners developed a basic education manifesto in which they charged politicians and policymakers to prioritise basic education during and after the 2023 elections in Nigeria.
The manifesto was developed by the Education Champions Network (ECN) in Nigeria and a coalition of international and local organisations, including Save The Children, Plan International, Invictus Africa, Civil Society Action Coalition on Education For All (CSACEFA) and Malala Fund.
The manifesto, titled Reimagining Education in Nigeria, includes three major asks: make senior secondary education free; fund more, fund better; and make schools safe.
Nigeria still accounts for the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reporting in 2022 that about 18.5 million children, the majority of whom are girls, do not have access to education in the country.
Figures from the UN agency also show that over 60 percent of these children are in the country’s northern region.
Furthermore, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) announced in 2022 that the country has about 20 million out-of-school children.
Free senior secondary education
The first ‘ask’ the manifesto addressed is the need to make senior secondary education free in Nigeria.
The Universal Basic Education Programme was set up to ensure free formal education, uninterrupted nine years of primary and junior secondary school education for students, but this leaves out secondary school students, which remains a problem.
To this end, the manifesto urged the government to amend the legislation to make education free and compulsory, up to the senior secondary level, thus guaranteeing 12 years of uninterrupted education for Nigerian children.
More, better funding
It is a well-known fact that Nigeria does not finance its education sector properly, unlike developed countries in the world that invest mostly in the educational sector.
This is reflected in the fact that the federal government has failed to dedicate at least 15 percent of its total annual budget to education, based on UNESCO’s recommendation.
In order to address this, the manifesto recommended that a task force be commissioned, including members of the civil society, to develop a roadmap to achieve Nigeria’s commitment to spend four percent GDP and 22.5 percent of its national budget for education by 2025.
The CSOs also urged the federal government to establish and mainstream minimum standards and guidelines for financial planning for education to include guidance on gender-responsive planning and budgeting and the establishment of national education accounts.
Making schools safe
Education in Nigeria has been facing various security challenges over the years, ranging from terrorism and insurgent attacks to kidnappings for monetary ransoms and so on.
As a result, students are deprived of access to quality education in conflict-ridden areas of Africa’s most populated nation.
It now falls on the hands of the next crop of leaders that would emerge from the 2023 elections to ensure that students deprived of access to quality education as a result of insecurity challenges are promptly given access to quality alternative education in a safe environment, in line with the National Guidelines for Accelerated Basic Education.
The manifesto demanded the immediate rolling-out of the implementation of the Safe Schools Plan of Action and the National Policy on Safety, Security and Violence Free Schools.
It also recommended the enhancement of teacher training on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) and the creation of standard operating procedures for responding to rights violations and clear referral pathways for services.
Education is the most powerful investment in the future of any nation, but the Nigerian education system is in a state of emergency and the country is lagging behind even the poorest countries on the continent.
The CSOs believe this manifesto will provide an opportunity for the new government to reimagine education for the country and find better ways to provide 12 years of safe, free, quality education for all.
The federal government needs to significantly increase education funding in order to improve facilities for teaching and learning, thereby improving quality and meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) four.
Photo source: SuSanA Secretariat
