From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
For years, there has been a debate around the phrase ‘free education’, especially in recent times following the gradual collapse of public schools from the basic to tertiary. The pursuit has been whether education can be free and qualititative or just a political statement by the political class.
For the first time in Nigeria, in January 1955, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Action Group Party launched an ambitious education programme called Universal Basic Education (UBE) to eradicate illiteracy, ignorance and poverty as well as stimulate and accelerate national development, political consciousness and national integration, especially in the western region.
This ambitious programme required serious financing in terms of putting structures in place and hiring teachers even though such investment has a long gestation period that would outlive the initiator, it has been of immense benefit to the region and the entire country as seen today.
Ever since, the UBE has transformed into what is now known as Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) through which emerging federal and state governments are making efforts to promote free and compulsory basic education for all.
As Nigeria’s population increases, funding of critical sectors, including education becomes difficult due to the dwindling economy and massive corrupt practices by unscrupulous politicians and their collaborators in civil service, private sector and academia.
Then, the idea of earmarking 25 percent of both the federal and states annual budgets to education became necessary. This has remained a dream because even when such is earmarked, especially at the state level, less than 50 percent of it is implemented thereby leaving a huge funding gap year in year out.
That funding gap and weak political decisions by successive administrations in some parts of the country have led to shocking statistics of out-of-school children put at well above 20 million (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation – September 2022).
It is against this background that the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom (UK) through the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has spent the sum of $109 million on the Girls’ Education Programme (GEP) to promote girls enrolment in school in six northern states between 2012-2022.
The Girls’ Education Programme Phase 3 (GEP3) and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) of the United Nations were aimed at improving access, enrolment, retention and learning outcomes for girls in basic education in Northern Nigeria, particularly in Bauchi, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kano states.
Senior Education Manager, UNICEF, Michael Banda, told participants at the dissemination of GEP 3 and SDG 4 in Kaduna that, before the coming of the GEP 3 project, one in four children in Nigeria most of who are girls were out of school in the North-west and North-east.
According to him, the project saw the enrolment of about 1.5 million girls
surpassing the 1 million target while 23,655 of these girls benefited from the cash transfer programme to enable them to stay in school.
He explained: “2.6 million children continued education through alternate learning during COVID-19 while back-to-school campaigns were conducted in 18,567 schools resulting in 94 percent of children returning to school.
“Over 67,000 teachers and Integrated Quranic Studies (IQS) facilitators were trained which led to improvement in teaching competency from 12 percent to 52 percent
“Also, over 3,800 schools and IQS implemented Reading and Numeracy Activity (RANA) with improvement in foundational literacy, over 135,000 girls benefited through 4,514 functioning Girls for Girls (G4G) groups, improvement in school attendance from 43 percent to 70 percent through phases 1, 2, and 3 of the project.”
The Director, Senior Secondary Education Department, Federal Ministry of Education, Hajiya Binta AbdulKadir, who spoke through the Director, Unity Schools Division, Mrs. Mayo Monica Ogah, noted that GEP3 was conceived as a result of the success achieved through the implementation of GEP1 and GEP2.
To her, “the increasing need to improve enrolment, retention and completion rate at the Basic Education level cannot be overemphasized hence GEP 3 focused on three thematic areas: enrolment drive, improving teacher capacity to deliver effective learning and improved governance to strengthen education.
“Under these thematic areas, other activities like the Cash Transfer programme, Community Engagement (School Based Management Committee- SBMC), Centre Based Management Committee-CBMC, Mothers’ Association all helped to achieve improved access, retention and completion of school”.
Treasurer, High Development Women Advocate (HiDWA) in Katsina State, Dr Binta Ado Ali, confirmed that before this project, there was very low girls enrolment in Katsina State.
“The state user to be one of the backward States in terms of girls’ enrolment. So HiDWA with support from UNICEF has been able to identify influential women from academia and other bodies who can influence decisions and development and work together with UNICEF to see that our girls are not just back in school but stay in school.
“We have been mentoring them on how we have come to be where we are and that they can even do better. So far so good, we don’t have the problem of enrolment but that of teachers in Katina now”, she said.
Education Specialist, UNICEF, Abuja office, Mrs. Azuka Menkiti said her organisation expected the state where GEP projects were executed to begin to scale up while other states were also advised to link up to see how they could replicate some of the interventions that addressed issues of access, quality learning and system strengthening within the education sector.
“We are replicating cash transfer, early reading and sort of interventions through different donours support and we are hoping that the governments of northern States will key into the success of GEP 3 to ensure more girls enroll in the region.
“Way forward includes but not limited to domestic financing for education in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of utilization of the funds.
“The major call is for the government to increase their financial support to education so we can address the key issue around the sector.
“Second, we are also dealing with the issue of out-of-school children. Everybody in northern Nigeria must come together to understand the need for us to bring children who are not learning back to school while the third point is to address the learning crisis including safe and secure schools”, she said.
Without education and these foundational skills, children are less likely to develop other skills and more likely to drop out of school, setting them on a path toward unemployment and more deeply entrenched poverty for them, their children and their communities, Officer-in-Charge, UNICEF Field Office, Kaduna, Dr. Idris Baba noted.
