Data gathered from Educeleb has painted a worrying picture of the Nigerian educational sector, which has consistently received a very poor budgetary allocation from the yearly budget, with the most recent being 8 percent.
According to Educeleb, which quoted the Federal Ministery of Education, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Nigeria has 13.2 million out of school children, with 9 million of these children Almajiri. This is the highest in the world.
The data also indicates that 30 percent of Nigerians are unable to read and write; 2 in 3 children don’t have access to early childhood education; 51 percent of children engage in child labour, 24 states are unable to access counterpart fund through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC). This is a threat to basic education.
12 states are owing teachers salary, posing a negative effect on quality education delivery; only 49 percent proceed to secondary school, only 6 percent of households with children that have at least three books.
Meanwhile, figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last year revealed that 50.5 percent of the poorest Nigerians, representing 82.9 million are without any form of formal education.
The government agency further broke down to 66.17 percent male and 34.72 percent female.