UNICEF: Nigeria is spending too little on primary education

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for more investment in Nigeria’s primary school education.

Michael Banda, the education manager at the UNICEF field office in Kano, spoke on Thursday in Zari.

He was at a media dialogue on children’s advocacy priorities for news and programme managers in Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa states.

Banda said more investments are still needed in the primary school sub-sector as Nigeria still faces the challenge of inclusive enrollment.

“The first problem with education in Nigeria is spending too little money on education. Nigeria is spending 1.2 percent of its GDP on education. The international benchmark is 4-6 percent and even the available funds are not being spent well,” he said.

Banda said a huge amount of money is being spent on higher education “when children in primary school cannot read, write, and count”.

“We need to get the budget right and increase the volume of expenditure. The country needs to improve the efficiency of expenditure on primary education,” he said.

Banda cited the rate of out-of-school children and low learning outcomes in the country especially in the north-west.

He said insufficient domestic finance for primary education caused a shortfall of 378,000 classrooms and about 278,000 teachers.

“Nigeria’s education system is faced with the twin crises of a large and growing out-of-school population and severe learning poverty,” he added.

“One in three children is out of school (OOS), 10.2 million at primary school level and 8.1 million children at junior secondary level.”