…show need for urgent government intervention
…World Bank suggests reforms to resolve challenge
The tallying of some industry statistics and real-life outcomes from the #EndBadGovernance protests suggests that government may need to act quickly to reappraise and respond to certain social indicators around the country.
In the course of the nationwide protests which began on Thursday, 1st August, states with greater numbers of out-of-school children tended to witness more severe outpours and tensions than those with lower rates.
Even though there have been suggestions that politicians may have been the invisible hand behind the way the protests turned out, analysts say that even that depended on the availability of willing tools to execute the politicians’ scheme.
Nigeria’s northern states tend to have greater numbers of out-of-school children.
Statistics from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) show that about 18.5 million children, the majority of whom are girls, did not have access to education in Nigeria as at 2022, a sharp upshot compared with 10.5 million children estimated by UNICEF to be out of school in Africa’s most populous country in 2021.
According to UNICEF figures, the states with the highest rates of out-of-school children are Kebbi, 67.6 per cent; Sokoto, 66.4 per cent, and Yobe, 62.9 per cent. These states are followed closely by Zamfara and Bauchi, with over half of the children aged 6-15 not attending school, according to statistics.
Northern Nigeria reportedly recorded the highest number of deaths on the very first day of the #EndBadGovernance protest.
This is according to a new report by SBM Intelligence, an Africa-focused market and security intel-gathering consulting firm, BusinessDay reports.
The report titled “An August Nightmare: Assessing The Early Days of The #EndBadGovernanceProtestInNigeria” stated that of the 30 people killed on the first day, 29 were killed in northern states with Borno having the highest record of 16 deaths.
The demonstration was most felt in the North where a 2022 report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said 86 million of the population are multidimensionally poor.
In January, Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, expressed concern over the high number of out-of-school children in the country.
“Stemming the tide of out-of-school children is a task that this government seeks to accomplish. This is because we are mindful of the spiral effects of having a large number of uneducated population,” Mamman said.
“One of the implications is that Nigeria will constantly produce miscreants who are ready tools in the hands of criminal gangs,” the minister said.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times of London, former President Olusegun Obasanjo raised a similar concern.
“Our youth are restive. And they are restive because they have no skill. They have no empowerment. They have no employment. We are all sitting on a keg of gunpowder. And my prayer is that we will do the right thing before it’s too late,” Obasanjo said.
The World Bank has, however, listed eight major governance reforms that can return about 11.1 million children in Nigeria to the classrooms in a cost-effective manner.
The reforms include reduction of out-of-pocket expenses, shifting the social norms through appropriate public campaigns, expanding the accessibility of schools, improving school infrastructure and providing adequate security.
Others are the integration of secular and religious education in the school curriculum, increasing budget allocation and promoting institutional mechanisms for a whole-of-government approach to education.
“Nigeria’s out-of-school challenge is a race that can only be won if the rate of increase of the in-school children population is much higher than the rate of increase of the school-age children population,” the World Bank said in its Nigeria Development Update.
It recommended the reduction of out-of-pocket expenses for education in government schools which will cause a positive effect on enrollment and attendance rates.
“It will also reduce adolescent marriage and pregnancy, and increased employment and financial inclusion,” the World Bank said.
It advised the government to “expand the availability and accessibility of schools, including through non-public provision with public funding (communities), and optimise the location of new schools using geo-referenced data”.
It said about 50 per cent of all primary classrooms and 40 per cent of all JSS classrooms are dilapidated.
To solve this, the bank highlighted the need to improve school infrastructure, including water, sanitation and hygiene services facilities, which would increase retention rates and better learning conditions.
The World Bank said in the 2020/21 academic year, school closures due to safety issues impacted an estimated 1.3 million children.
To change this, it urged Nigeria’s government to ensure safety in and around schools in order to increase enrollment and attendance rates.
Regarding the problem of school financing, it proposed increased budget allocation to basic education and the institution of policies to improve efficiency and equity in funds allocation, which will bring about a more equitable and efficient distribution of the Universal Basic Education Commission funds to states.
The World Bank’s report highlighted the fragmented decision-making in Nigeria’s education system.
It recommended the promotion of institutional mechanisms for a whole-of-government approach to education in order to improve the performance of education interventions.
Other stakeholders suggest the adoption of technical and artisanal skills to get segments of Nigeria’s out-of-school children who may not have the foundation or interest in pursuing formal education back into the productive economy.
