Unfortunately, governors have the predilection for approbating the policy and, at the same time, engaging in governance missteps that undermine its effective implementation in their respective states.
Governor Chukwuma Soludo's recent declaration of "free and compulsory" basic education in Anambra State ticks all the right boxes in the quest for a solid foundation for a knowledge-driven society and better citizenry. In demonstrating this resolve, he suspended four school principals three days after he had warned against the collection of fees from students. While his action is commendable, he has only echoed what is Nigeria's extant policy on education, as espoused in the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act 2004, but which is sadly observed only in the breach across the states of the country.
Soludo's avowal is interesting because of his incarnation of academic excellence. All eyes are, therefore, on him to see how this will be pulled off in concrete terms. More importantly, it will sustain the state's momentum or steady progress in the education sector, re-kindled by one of his predecessors, Peter Obi, through a series of reforms. From the 26th position, the state had leaped to number one in education performance, under Obi's eight years in office. This is exemplified in Anambra State's constant top feats in public examinations like the Senior Secondary School Certificate (SSSC), the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), NECO and the Federal Government Colleges' entrance examinations.
In emphasising the dawn of massive infrastructure in public schools and activation of the machinery for effective implementation of the vision, Soludo said, "The aim is to go back to the basics when education was used as the equaliser, such that children from poor and rich backgrounds will attend the same school and compete favourably."
At the end of the civil war in 1970, the Yakubu Gowon administration took the decision to provide universal and compulsory primary education, leading to the launch of the Universal Primary Education Programme (UPE) in 1976. The Olusegun Obasanjo administration replaced the programme with Universal Basic Education in 1999, in an overhaul of the old UPE, to establish greater access to quality primary education throughout the country.
The policy was legalised through the UBE Act 2004, which created a nine-year formal education framework, comprising six years at the primary level and three years of junior secondary instruction. It was made free and compulsory for every child of school age. To drive the programme, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) was set up, where two percent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund is channelled annually. States draw funds from UBEC by providing their statutory counterpart funding, among other criteria that must be met.
Unfortunately, governors have the predilection for approbating the policy and, at the same time, engaging in governance missteps that undermine its effective implementation in their respective states. This is the import of the N46.2 billion UBE funds not accessed by states as of 30 April, which UBEC's Acting Executive Secretary, Bala Zakari, revealed to a Senate Committee during its oversight visit to the Commission.
Ironically, Anambra was the only state not to have accessed its 2019 grant, and along with Abia, Adamawa, Ebonyi, Kwara and Ogun states, it is yet in default in collecting the 2020 grant. UBEC's records show that annually some states are in remiss, simply by not providing the counterpart funding that enables them to draw the UBE funds. Besides, some governors see the grants as funds to be looted. One of them from the North-East zone, who later became a senator, was prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for this abuse of office. But he was let off the hook as the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) subsumed public morality and national interest under its dirty politics of expediency, in its desire to control the leadership of the Senate in 2019.
Before Soludo, other former governors in Kano, Imo, Osun, Akwa Ibom and Delta states, among others, had made similar pronouncements on free and compulsory primary education, without being faithful to the policy or showing consistency in its implementation. Delta State was entangled in such crossroads in 2019, when a Primary 1 pupil, identified simply as Success, of Okotie-Eboh Primary School 1, Sapele, was sent home for her parents' inability to pay her second term school fees and the cost of books. But the little girl protested and preferred being flogged to going home. A JSS 2 student, named Chinyere, of Community Secondary School, Adazi-Ani in Anambra State, was crushed to death after being sent home for non-payment of fees in 2017. These are evidences of how oblivious the authorities in these states had been in relation to the manner in which their head teachers were administering the schools.
Legally, it is settled that education at the basic level is an inalienable right of every Nigerian child. An Abuja Federal High Court Judge, John Tosho, had in 2017, in a suit filed by the Legal Defence and Assistance Project, on the enforceability of Section 18 (3) in Chapter 2 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, which states that the State, "shall as when practicable, provide free and compulsory and universal primary education," declared that by the combined effects of this Section and Section 2(1) of Free and Compulsory UBE Act 2004, free and compulsory education is non-negotiable in the country.
The Supreme Court had ruled in 2002 that this constitutional provision could only be enforced through legislation; and the UBE Act provided just that. Prior to these interventions, the Western Region government, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in the First Republic, proved that free education is possible in Nigeria.
In implementing this education policy, governors should be aware of squalid school environments, which negate the programme. There is a lot of proof of pupils sitting on bare floors or under trees to learn, even in Abuja; in addition to schools with caved roofs, no water and the lack of toilet facilities. Certainly, such dilapidated classrooms or environments do not promote effective learning. It is for this reason that the UNESCO's director in Nigeria, Hassana Alidou, during the launch of Education for All, Global Monitoring Report in Abuja, in January 2014, said the country had the worst education indicators globally. It joined 36 other countries that lose $129 billion annually to "education without learning" in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America.
From 10.5 million out-of-school children in 2010 to 13.2 million by 2015, the figure has presently risen to over 20 million in Nigeria, still the worst in the world. This is so because laws are not enforced here. The situation could not have been worse if states had given effect to Section 2 (2) of the UBE Act, which provides that a parent who fails to enrol a child, or withdraws him/her from school, faces a fine of N2,000 or one-month imprisonment; or both. A N5,000 fine or two months' imprisonment or both, awaits any parent who is subsequently convicted for the same offence.
The immediate past Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, once put it succinctly, "Unless not sending children to school is made a crime, and parents who refuse to send their children to school are prosecuted, we may not see the desired changes." Children of school age in Nigeria cannot, in this 21st century, be allowed to function as house-helps and street hawkers, while their mates are in school. With Soludo's knack for taking hard decisions, seen in the consolidation of the financial bases of banks during his tenure as governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), he should give consequence to this critical provision of the UBE Act in order to revolutionise school enrolment, not only in the state, but all over the country.
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Model schools with classroom desks, lockers, books and other instructional materials, as some former governors provided, do not in themselves morph into quality education without qualified teachers. National surveys show a disturbing shortage of qualified teachers across the 36 states of the country, thus giving room for quacks to be engaged. As the public school system has collapsed, private schools have proliferated for mercantile reasons. This does not serve the national interest at all.
In Kaduna, Kwara, Edo, and Sokoto states, among others, thousands of teachers in public schools flunked primary school tests. Assessment or competence tests have been avoided in many states. A former Executive Secretary of UBEC, Mohammed Modibbo, in his testimony to a Senate Committee on Education in 2012, painted how horrible the picture is: "...I have given them UBE books in Sokoto State. But more than 50 per cent of the entire teachers in the state cannot read because they are not qualified."
It is axiomatic that the quality of education in any country cannot rise above the quality of its teachers. Therefore, the training and retraining of teachers must be vigorously pursued, just as the enhancement of their welfare packages, especially the salary, is imperative. Nigeria cannot effectively key into the Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) of the United Nations for a better future for all without a solid springboard that basic education provides. Governors must henceforth be held to account for the quality of primary education in their states, in the interest of Nigeria's overall human capital development.
