As campaigns for Nigeria’s 2023 2023 elections heat up, a coalition of over 100 civil society organisations (CSOs) and development partners have called on citizens to engage political candidates on their plans for basic education.
The coalition, including Malala Fund, Save The Children, Plan International, Invictus Africa, YouthHubAfrica, Civil Society Action Coalition on Education For All (CSACEFA), made the call at a one-day workshop on ‘2023 Elections: Reimagining Education Commitments’ in Abuja.
The CSOs, in a basic education manifesto they recently developed, charged politicians and policymakers to prioritise basic education during and after the 2023 elections in Nigeria.
Development Diaries reports that the manifesto, titled Reimagining Education in Nigeria, calls for better ways to provide 12 years of safe, free, quality education for all.
Africa’s most populous nation 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 this year 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.
Another UN agency, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), announced in 2022 that the country has about 20 million out-of-school children.
Also recently, the country’s Education Minister, Adamu Adamu, admitted his failure to reduce the number of out-of-school children in the country despite the issue being one of his key priorities in over seven years.
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.
However, current realities, as they relate to low funding for basic education in the country, suggest that Nigeria is unlikely to achieve that goal.
‘Amend the legislation to make education free and compulsory up to senior secondary level, thus guaranteeing 12 years of uninterrupted education for Nigerian children’, the manifesto read.
‘Adopt a progressive universalisation approach to the implementation of 12 years of education, which priorities support those at greatest risk of not learning – the poor, the discriminated against, girls, children with disabilities and those facing multiple disadvantages.
‘Commission a task force, including members of civil society, to develop a roadmap to achieve Nigeria’s commitment to spend 4% GDP and 22.5% of the national budget for education by 2025’.
It also called on the next government to ensure that students deprived of access to quality education as a result of the conflict, violence or crises are promptly given access to quality alternative education in a safe environment.
Addressing journalists at the workshop, Malala Fund Programme Director for Nigeria, Fatima Askira, said that the purpose of the manifesto is to ensure political candidates commit to prioritising education in Nigeria.
‘What we want to do with this manifesto is engage with the candidates, interact with them and get their commitment on what they would want to do with education, either through their signatures, endorsing it and adopting it’, she said.
‘This way, we get a valid reason to ensure that when they are in office, we can come back and say this is what you promised us; so we can have them sign and agree to what is in the manifesto and have them commit to it’.
Also speaking at the workshop, the Executive Director of Invictus Africa, Bukky Shonibare, urged citizens to demand and track the implementation of the promises of candidates after they get into office.
She said it is not enough for political candidates to make promises.
‘So for every citizen of Nigeria, it is our collective responsibility as citizens to demand and to track the implementation of these policies and promises’, she said.
‘Come on social media, when you meet them one-on-one, ask them what they are doing, when you see them in meetings, ask them what they are doing.
‘Until we get to that point where citizens are conscious and we occupy the office of the citizens and we have it as a collective responsibility, these things will not move’.
According to the coalition, the manifesto will be formally launched in January 2023.
