Transcribed Paper Series
2009 against the UNESCO standard/threshold of 26%.
The
Fronteira Post
Economic Policy & Financial Markets
April 08, 2010
Challenges Currently Facing the
Educational Sector in Nigeria
By Dr. Olatoye Olawale1
[Interview Crew: Victor Umoru, and Nwabugo Ozim]
Definitions
Education can simply be defined as the aggregate of all
the process by which a child or adult develops the
abilities, attitudes and other forms of behaviour which
are of positive value to the society in which he lives.
The Challenges
When the issue of Education is being raised today the
first set of thoughts that comes to mind are:
inadequate facilities, examination malpractices, decline
in academic standards etc. There are many challenges
facing the education sector today in the country. These
challenges are numerous and multifarious and
comprise the problem of incessant teacher strike, the
problem of brain drain, lack of teaching facilities in our
schools and the problem of teachers’ low esteem .
Inter-alia, the main problem facing the education
sector in Nigeria is under funding. A Yoruba adage says
that “if a bigger problem slams you on the floor, a
smaller problem will deride you”. The problem of
underfunding brings about so many other challenges
that are facing the education sector.
If education is properly funded, incessant teacher strike
will be absent in the system; if teachers and our
professors are well taken care of, the problem of brain
drain will not be there. What of facilities in our
universities and unity schools? The facilities in our
educational institutions are too poor to be compared
with other societies of the world. This is still the
problem of poor funding. What of the low esteem? The
low self esteem of teachers bedeviled their
contribution. Psychologically they are not giving what
is required in the classroom. Why? This is because the
welfare packages are not good enough for them.
These entire problems are tied around under-funding.
It is shameful that 13% of the federal government
budget was allocated to the education sector in the
2008 fiscal year while less than that was allocated in
1
This paper has been prepared based on the interview by
ValueFronteira team of Analysts.
© ValueFronteira Limited, 2010. This publication is protected by copyright law. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or
private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers. The views expressed in this medium are
strictly that of the authors and not of the institutions they work for.
This attitude is miserly on education. It is just too low!
It announces unequivocally that education features
very low in the priority arrangement of the Nigerian
government. There are so many other words to
describe this slap-happy attitude of the government. It
is irresponsible, it is short sighted, and it is cynical and
incredible. This is just to mention a few of them.
UNESCO pointed out under her charter that 26% of the
national annual budget of any country be devoted to
education but in Nigeria we can only allocate 13% or less
for education. It is a sorry case if 13% is still being
allocated to education. The implication is that many
challenges will be left to bedevil the sector. Other
problems of education include poor presentation and
malpractices which experts believe that it is due to
poor preparation of students for examinations and lack
of self confidence. Also there is the case of exploitation
and educational sub-standardization whereby students
are made to suffer undue amount of exploitation by
school heads at both private and public school in the
name of enrolment fees and assurance of success, all
these lead to lowering of the academic ability of
students. Poor parenting and guidance is also another
problem of education in Nigeria whereby many parents
have decided to bring in additional innovation by way
of not only encouraging, but also financing activities
malpractices in order to brighten the chances of their
children or wards in qualifying examination to higher
institutions. Some even progress on this act through
the tertiary level of education. There is no nation
building on the altars of ignorance. Mediocrity is fast
taking over in every aspect of the Nigerian life.
Garbage-in equals garbage-out.
There is also the problem of poorly-equipped libraries,
laboratories and subject rooms in which many schools
and colleges study. Most of these are not equipped
with essential books and current journals and
magazines. Also many schools and colleges do not
have science laboratories while a good number of
those that have, do not possess the basic tools or
equipment such as microscopes, dissecting
instruments and specimens. Also many schools do not
have special rooms for teaching such basic subjects.
Again the teaching-learning process is stalled and the
overall development of the children, within the school
system is retarded.
Politicization of education is another problem of
education. In an attempt to catch up with their
counter-parts, many states in Nigeria particularly the
new ones, indulge in the opening and running of many
educational institutions even when they are least
prepared to do so, this thereby results in lowering of
standards and various educational projects collapsing
mid-way.
 Challenges Currently Facing the Educational Sector in Nigeria
Nigeria and Her Poor-Quality Graduates
Nigeria as a country produces thousands of poor
quality graduates every year and the problem of
producing poor graduates every year is evident in the
Nigerian education sector. It is usually ugly and
shameful at times when you see graduates that cannot
prove to the world that they have been to the citadel
of learning in Nigeria, why? This is because the system
is operating a meal–ticket syndrome. Meal-ticket-
syndrome is a problem where the society emphasizes
too much on certification. If you do not have
certificates you cannot work, if you do not have
certificate nobody knows you. There is too much
emphasis on certification rather than what you can
really offer. That is why everybody is ready to get these
certificates willy-nilly. For example in Lagos, there is a
particular certificate that is usually being referred to as
the Alaba-Certificate, why? Because people are ready
to pay more, even pay a huge sum of money to get this
certificate. Everybody, especially in the universities
believed that, once you give lecturers money, you get
your grades and certificate and before you know it you
are already a graduate. If the Nigerian society
continues to emphasize certification, the problem of
producing poor graduates will persist. The major cause
of this pathetic condition is the poor welfare package
given to these teachers and lecturers. Their welfare is
nothing to write home about. The lecturers are hungry,
so give them money “they are ready to water down
principles.” If they water down principles, if they water
down teaching ethics, what good can we see, if not
checked we will continue to spell doom for the
educational sector. The Nigeria-Educational System is
not producing the desired results. The problems with
our educational system are enormous and instead of
our leaders going back to the drawing board to
readdress this pathetic situation, more and more
students are being shoved forward yearly. To where?
We cannot say but certainly getting close to the wall.
Turnaround Programmes/Policies/Projects
It is clear that the government is not ready to
checkmate these challenges and there are no real plans
in focus. Even if there is any programme, policy or
project to checkmate these challenges, it is a charade!
The government has been given different strategic
reports to address these challenges along the years but
remained obstinate. Many reports have been
submitted to the federal government, including the
ASSU report submitted to the federal government. The
federal government in its own discretion has not
instituted any real and focus based policy or
programme that will checkmate these challenges.
Categorically, there have not been any serious and
focused programmes, policies or projects in place to
checkmate these challenges. The Nigerian government
is very much aware of the problems but has lacked the
© ValueFronteira Limited, 2010. This publication is protected by copyright law. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or
private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers. The views expressed in this medium are
strictly that of the authors and not of the institutions they work for.
will to tackle them. They know what to do but are not
ready to do it. The federal government has been so
miserly on education; the government has been paying
little attention to education. This is problem in itself. If
the federal government is sincere enough to combat
this ugly trend, it will be seen in their attitude towards
education but they have not been doing it. In fact, we
have not been seeing the impact(s) and they have not
been working effectively. Since independence a lot of
education laws, policies and edicts have been put in
place, depending on the type of government being
experienced in the country. The western region under
the premiership of late Obafemi Awolowo launched
the free Universal Primary Education (UPE); the main
objective behind their respective educational
programmes was to increase primary education access
to benefit children of school age. The big question is,
did it achieve this cardinal objective? Then the process
of making the universalization of primary education a
national project started with the Obansanjo’s regime in
1976 during his military rule. For the first time in the
history of Nigeria, the UPE programme that originally
started as regional project was redesigned by the
national government to provide education for the
Nigerian citizens by changing the content of UPE to
encompass the following philosophy of education as
articulated in National policy on Education. The
concept of the universal basic education may not be a
new idea totally. From all indication, the universal basic
education can be regarded as an offshoot of the
universal primary education. In 1979, the constitution
puts education on the concurrent list, which implies
that the responsibilities and the authority in education
would be shared among the three tiers of government,
i.e., federal, state and local governments. A major
policy made by the federal government was put in
place in 1977, which was tagged the National Policy on
Education. This policy was the outcome of a seminar
convened in 1973 after the National Curriculum
Conference. The 1977 policy has been revised thrice,
i.e., 1981, 1998 and 2004. But all the revisions
culminated in failures. According to this policy,
education is supposed to equalize opportunities, so
that any individual, regardless of background can
achieve success.
The National Education Policy of Nigeria has been
administered for a periodical review, with mission to
align with current development of national initiatives,
as well as the emerging global trends. The National
Policy was manual driven when it was first enunciated
in 1977. Over the period of thirty years education has
become globally ICT-driven. With the emergence of
newer concepts such as e-Education, e-Classrooms, e-
Library, e-Governance etc., Nigeria needs to grow to
meet the growing challenges. The main thrust of the
current review of the National Policy on Education was
to include a general improvement on quality of
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 Challenges Currently Facing the Educational Sector in Nigeria
education and merge with elements of National
Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy
(NEEDS) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
like capacity building, encouraging the promotion of
gender equity, skill acquisition, using higher education
to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS and other endemic
diseases, strengthening ICT capabilities in tertiary
education, including setting up of model e-Classrooms,
and raising the profile of research in tertiary
institutions as a vehicle for technological advancement.
It is evident that the government has not spent up to
15% of its total budget on education in the last 10 years
of democracy. This is a bad omen for our educational
sector. Table 1 below shows the percentage share of
education to overall federal fiscal allocation since 1999
Table 1: Federal Government Allocation to Education
Sector (1999-2010)
Years Allocation (billion) Percentage
1999 23.0
2000 44.2
2001 39.9
2002 100.2
2003 64.8
2004 72.2
2005 92.6
2006 166.6
2007 137.5
2008 210.0
2009 183.4
2010 249.1
The low level of fiscal allocation to the sector which is
below the UNESCO’s threshold of 26% of the total
budget certainly affects the implementation of
government policy on education in the country and in
particular the Universal Basic Education since its
inception.
The Education System and Non-governmental
Organization in Nigeria
The NGOs have been trying all along in helping the
educational sector. These are organizations that are
not of government but have been giving scholarships,
grants and have been paying school fees of many
students that cannot afford to pay their school fees.
Many of them have accomplished laudable feats in this
regards, but how many lives can they touch. The
Nigerian population now is over 150million people, how
much can these NGOs expend to enable citizens
acquire quality education. This is a problem. They (the
NGOs) have been trying but they cannot do more than
the government will do. It is the sole right of the
government of the land to provide qualitative
education to the citizenry. The NGOs can only help and
much of it has not really changed the situation. How
many people will boldly come out these days to say my
© ValueFronteira Limited, 2010. This publication is protected by copyright law. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or
private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers. The views expressed in this medium are
strictly that of the authors and not of the institutions they work for.
schooling was made possible by one NGO for the
period of five years? NGO can only give scholarship
maybe for a session, for a term or give meager sum of
money that can help, but it cannot touch the lives of
150 or say 8million Nigerian students. This is a sorry
case. The federal government should wake up and
dance to its responsibility.
The telecommunication companies in different ways
have been motivating the sector. For instance, MTN
has been encouraging students through its television
programme popularly called ‘who wants to be a
millionaire. Money won by students are transferred
into their accounts for future educational endeavours.
It is a laudable project. Also, before his death (Gani
Fawehinmi) had instituted scholarship bodies that
gives scholarship to so many students in Nigeria. There
are so many other philanthropic organizations that
have been doing this. It is laudable but the issue here is
that, it cannot impact much into lives of the citizens.
11.2
8.3 The oil companies in the likes of Shell, Mobil and
7.0 Chevron, in the universities and secondary education
5.1 give scholarship to students across discipline and
11.8 faculties irrespective of the state origin. It remains a
7.8 laudable project, but the question remains, how many
students can benefit from it? It is only students that are
8.3
exceptional, that are very brilliant and everybody
8.7
cannot be exceptional in their educational endeavor.
6.1
So, these NGO’s only pick exceptional students for this
13.0
scholarship, what of average students? So many people
7.2
have gone through the citadel of learning without a
6.4 single scholarship or little motivation all along. So, we
need governments’ intervention to help solve these
problems.
Is there anything in a Named “System”?
There is nothing wrong with the policy/system, but the
mechanism running the policy/system itself is
ineffective. When the new 6-3-3-4 system was created,
it was created to give adequate man power to the
economy. The 6-3-3-4 education system in Nigeria is a
system that is created to be effective but it was
undermined by the government and her cohorts. So,
the mechanism running the policy/system is wrong, the
policy itself is not wrong. Nigeria education has
evolved through a number of phases. The 9-3-4 system
of education which is the new education system after
the 6-3-3-4 requires every child to have a compulsory
and unbroken nine-year education, all in the primary
school. This will be followed with a three-year
secondary education and then a four-year higher
education. The last two segments of the educational
system are not compulsory. After many failed years
with 6-3-3-4 system comes the 9-3-4. The question is,
should we believe in a name or the effectiveness of
running the name? Somebody woke up and brought
over 9-3-4 from a foreign land without considering why
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 Challenges Currently Facing the Educational Sector in Nigeria
and how it will or not work for Nigeria. How then can
we evaluate a program that has not lived its course?
Nigeria has witnessed several educational reforms
which started at pre-independence but it was all
failure. It was to the credit of Nigerians notably
agitators for self-rule that led the British colonial rulers
to change the educational system in operation in 1954
from 8-6-2-3 system which was 8years primary, 6years
secondary, 2years higher school certificate and 3year
university to a new system 6-5-2-3 which was also,
6years primary, 5years secondary, 2years higher school
certificate and 3years university. The change resulted in
reducing the number of years at the primary and
secondary school levels. Nigerians then were more
concerned about education. It is viewed as a patriotic
struggle to effect a change in the educational structure
for the general good of the country.
Crisis in education started manifesting itself when
government went all out to implement 6-3-3-4 system
without adequate planning and roadmap in place. The
lower education specifically primary education was the
first to suffer the effect of inadequate planning. Free
Universal Primary Education was launched in 1976 but
the policy on education itself disappeared in 1977 one
year after implementation of the programme. In this
kind of situation where implementation is ahead of
policy, confusion would certainly emerge. Needs
assessment was not properly done; the end result was
absence of adequate statistical data. Notwithstanding
absence of correct data to implement the UPE, the
Federal Government went ahead and took over all
voluntary and mission schools and assumed full
financial responsibility of running the scheme
throughout the country. But all was a failure.
It is a known fact that education in Nigeria today is no
longer a private enterprise, but a huge government
venture that has witnessed a progressive evolution of
governments’ complete and dynamic intervention and
active participation. The new 9-3-4 system of education
in the real sense is a disguised continuation of the
failed 6-3-3-4 system of education.
Advice to the Government
The government of the day cannot beat her chest and
tell us that they are naïve on what to do to help
combat this ugly trend. They know what to do. Last
year August (2009), ASUU reported on what they
should do in order to checkmate these problems
rocking the sector but the federal government has
remained insensitive to the plight of stakeholders in
the sector. The government has never seemed to be
bordered about the low level of education. So, if the
government is insensitive, if the government is not
ready to help, there is nothing meaningful anybody can
do and the sector will continue to die gradually. So, it is
the work of the government, the society is looking
© ValueFronteira Limited, 2010. This publication is protected by copyright law. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or
private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers. The views expressed in this medium are
strictly that of the authors and not of the institutions they work for.
unto them; begging them, to help Nigerians; to help
the Nigerian economic development as a whole.
Government and the private sector should put in more
efforts and resources towards the development of the
sector.
The number one way that the federal government can
help is to fund the education sector properly.
Government should increase the percentage share of
the educational sector in the annual budget so that
there can be a turnaround in the sector. Qualitative and
affordable education can be made available for all. The
day federal government starts to fund education
properly is the day Nigeria will stand side by side
progressively with any country in the world. As said
earlier that the Yoruba proverb says “if a big problem
slams you on the floor, smaller problems will deride
you” .The big problem this time around is the problem
of underfunding, if it can be tackled other smaller
problems will be taken care of. The issue of funding
should be properly looked into. Education in Nigeria
today needs a total overhauling and restructuring. To
succeed in this regards, we must undertake some
major tasks like acquiring and adapting global
knowledge and creating knowledge locally. Similarly,
by investing in human capital in such a way as to
increase their ability to absorb and use knowledge and
by investing in technologies to facilitate both
acquisition and the absorption of knowledge, more
efficacious outcomes can be expected. Furthermore,
since the provision of more schools automatically
translates to provision of more quality teachers, the
government should make the needed provision as well
as adequately training the teachers. In sum, the
government should meet the 26% budget allocation
UNESCO threshold and push for high level
policy/programme/project implementation concerning
education.
4