Governance of education service delivery in Nigeria

1
Governance of educationservice delivery in
Nigeria

• Fragile states seminar
• 7 January 2009
• Stephen Baines

2
Does Nigeria qualify as fragile?

• Worlds sixth largest oil producer
• Most populous African country
• A democracy with the army in barracks
• A functioning federal system of government
• A political vision for Nigerias future role in
  the world 20-2020
• A memory of civil conflict that drives a desire
  for compromise and ethnic, geographical and
  religious even-handedness.

3
On the other hand

• Economy highly dependent on oil
• A poor track record in using national resources
  to develop the economy
• Very high disparity between rich and poor
• Social sectors that have seriously declined
  through neglect and mismanagement.
• Government services dysfunctional and inefficient
• Pervading culture of lack of trust
• Continuing lawlessness in the delta and
  occasional inter-ethnic violence

4
How does this affect education?

• Low levels of participation in education (girls
  in the North, boys in the South)
• Poor attainment in basic literacy and numeracy
• Poor physical infrastructure and lack of
  facilities, sanitation, learning materials etc
• Bad teaching
• Lack of management
• Serious under-funding at the point of delivery
• Little sense of community ownership of schools

5
What are the reasons for the dire state of public
education?

• The problem is not lack of overall funding, but
  how the funding is accessed and used.
• Under-utilisation of funds due to Federal-State
  government tensions e.g. UBE Intervention Fund
• No clear relation between planning, budgeting and
  what actually happens
• Off-budget expenditure and diversion of
  allocations for other purposes
• Funds allocated not always released
• Proliferation of parastatal bodies
• 21 federal bodies under Federal Ministry of
  Education
• 11 bodies responsible for inspecting schools in
  Kano State

6
More problems

• Overlapping constitutional roles and
  responsibilities
• Unwieldy institutional structures and
  concentrated decision making
• Politicisation of public service appointments
• Low levels of performance and capacity
• Lack of transparency and adherence to due process
• Policies and decisions based on intuition rather
  than data and analysis

7
Who is responsible for education?

• Federal system constitutional roles -
• Federal government tertiary education, policy,
  standards and quality assurance
• States secondary
• Local Government primary
• But it is not as simple as that
• Basic education is the responsibility of the
  Universal Basic Education Commission and the
  SUBEBs
• Most of local government budgets spent by SUBEBs

8
(No Transcript)
9
What sustains this system?

• System suits small elite in whom power is
  concentrated
• Network of vested interests due to patronage
• Weak accountability
• Supine legislators
• Sensationalist press
• Big man complacency
• Buoyant economy
• Opt-out from public education
• Private education
• Islamic education

10
Is change possible?

• Political will exists amongst some political
  leaders
• Growing public disquiet over performance of the
  education system
• Private sector influence on politicians
• Influence of traditional leaders
• Influence of the Diaspora
• Downturn in the economy may expose weaknesses and
  prompt desire for change

11
What role is there for development partners

• Combined aid budgets less than 2 of GDP
  -influence therefore limited
• Isolated donor projects on e.g. teacher training
  or textbook provision unlikely to have much
  impact
• Need to leverage domestic resources
• Need for a system-wide approach that also takes
  in other sectors e.g. governance and public
  administration, health, voice and accountability
• But this is a high risk strategy.

12
Establishing a framework for improving basic
education

• Federal government to promote an enabling
  environment for reform
• States strategic planning, budgeting, financial
  management and HR/performance management
• Schools transformation to demonstrate that
  improvement is possible
• Community voice and demand for improvement

13
In conclusionfragile or not?

• Optimists look to
• Relative political stability and functioning
  political and legal systems
• Vibrant private sector
• Continued petroleum revenues
• Pessimists look to
• Fragile political, ethnic and geographical
  consensus
• Collapsing public services
• Economic slowdown and increasing social problems
• Mounting lawlessness
• Take your pick.