Two Malala Fund Education Champions have reiterated the call on state governments in Nigeria to prioritise basic education as the country continues to grapple with the rising number of out-of-school children.
Development Diaries reports that the Executive Director of YouthHub Africa, Rotimi Olawale, and his equivalent at Invictus Africa, Bukky Shonibare, made the call against the backdrop of a recent report that state governments failed to access over N46.2 billion in grants for the development of public primary and junior secondary schools in the country.
Presenting the 2022 capital budget implementation report for the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), acting Secretary of the commission, Bala Zakari, revealed that only 11 states had accessed the 2022 matching grants as of 30 April, 2023.
Zakari disclosed the figures during an oversight visit to the commission by the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education.
According to him, out of N162,284,117,592 allocated to the states as UBE grants between 2019 and 2022, only N116,072,964,294.33 was accessed by the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The objective of UBEC is to ensure free education for children at the primary school level and three years of junior secondary school.
The commission is mandated to provide funds to assist states in the implementation of its basic education programme. To access allocated UBEC funds, states must match the grant amount available, up to at least 50 percent.
However, based on data from UBEC, many states are failing to meet the counterpart funding for universal basic education.
In an interview with Development Diaries, Olawale, whose organisation conducted the Basic Education Performance Ranking 2022, said that the conditions for accessing grants should be reviewed.
The ranking highlighted the performance of public schools across 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
‘I feel performance-based system is perhaps better than this matching grant system that UBEC is currently based on’, Olawale said.
‘What the YouthHub Africa findings tried to look at is education outcomes. We tried to look at investments in education, we tried to look at learning outcomes, and numeracy skills, because what’s the essence of investing resources in the education sector when the kids cannot read and write after nine years of schooling?
‘Commissioners for education have complained to us, when we tried to understand why the funds are not being utilised, that the guideline they receive from UBEC is heavy on construction, so it does not give states the flexibility to spend the resources on what they consider as state priority.
‘So there is some mismatch in that and I think that UBEC should not adopt a one-size-fits-all framework for all states because I feel that the challenges of basic education in different states are different’.
Olawale also lamented that some state governments have abdicated their responsibility of funding basic education.
‘The primary responsibility of basic education lies with the state government. UBE funding should be seen as extra’, he said.
‘What has now happened with basic education in Nigeria is that in many of the states, UBE funding is like 90 percent of the funding to basic education.
‘So if you walk into a school and you see infrastructural projects, many of them will have UBEC written on them because they were financed by UBEC’.
Like other education advocates in Nigeria, the YouthHub Africa executive director called on state governments to address the needs of teachers, not focus only on construction.
He said, ‘A lot of governors have big, lofty ideas – they want to build new classrooms, new schools – but I think that improving and reforming education goes beyond construction. You need to look at teachers – how do you support them, how do you ensure that the right set of books is available, especially in non-urban areas?
For the Executive Director of Invictus Africa, Shonibare, she believes that most state governments have failed to pay enough attention to basic education.
‘This failure to access the fund shows that they have paid less attention to basic education in their respective states which results in their inability to use what the UBEC grant is meant for – the upgrade of facilities and basic needs in primary and basic education schools’, Shonibare told Development Diaries.
‘These needs are but not limited to the building of classrooms and infrastructure, provision of instructional materials, boreholes, and toilet facilities, and training and retraining of teachers. All these are believed to be necessary in order to improve enrolment and retention in schools, especially for girls’.
She also said, ‘I believe that the failure of these states, as managers and developers of primary and junior secondary education, is due to their deliberate or insufficient understanding that no state development lasts if primary and secondary education are not provided with the relevant infrastructure to ensure they deliver on their intended purpose.
‘State governments need to pay more attention and prioritise the basic levels of education being an important foundation for building the next generation of leaders.
‘This commitment requires paying the counterpart funds to access the UBEC grant and using the grants judiciously’.
How best can states scale up finance for basic education?
‘All hands must be on deck. Education is not a sector that government alone can handle. Other stakeholders have to be carried along and should contribute to the process and system’, Shonibare responded.
‘However, states can scale up their finance for education if they are deliberate about it, which must start by first demonstrating genuine interest, commitment, and political will for education, particularly the education of girls in a nation that is endemically patriarchal’.
Development Diaries, therefore, calls on all returning and incoming governors to accord topmost priority to basic and secondary education by financing 12 years of free UBE with at least 20 percent of total state government spending every year.
Photo source: Connected Development
