For the 2024 fiscal year, the Nigerian government has made a provision of N3,556 for the educational needs each of school child between the ages of 5-17 years, a data analysis by Ripples Metrics has shown.

The analysis was drawn from the review of the 2024 budget to the Ministry of Education.

In the 2024 approved budget, by President Bola Tinubu, the Ministry of Education was allocated N1.59 trillion. This amount represents 5.52 per cent of the N28.78 trillion budget for the fiscal year.

The budget for education was increased from N1.44 trillion proposed by the president in November 2023, when the budget was initially presented to the joint session of the National Assembly.

Ripples Metrics evaluated the budget to capture how much the government provided for school children. Under the Ministry of Education, there are 250 agencies and departments, including the ministry’s headquarters and budget provisions for public institutions owned by the federal government.

To run our analysis, Ripples Metrics filtered the budget to review which agencies’ capital budget would directly affect school children between the ages of 5-17 years, which are those in primary and secondary school. Our findings show only five agencies, which are the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), the West African Examination Council (local and international) and the Nigerian Teachers Institute.

The total capital budgeted for these agencies amounted to N224.34 billion. Hypothetically, if this amount is divided by the total number of children between the ages of 5-17 years, which is put at 62.9 million, this would amount to N3,567 approximately budgeted for each child.

Challenges in the education sector

Nigeria is faced with the challenge of many out-of-school children, with the country taking a significant percentage in the global rate of out-of-school children. For emphasis, 60 per cent of most children in this category are mainly girls. Globally, there are 118.5 million girls out of school.

About a decade ago, UNICEF disclosed that even though primary education is officially free and compulsory, about 10.5 million of Nigeria’s children aged between 5-14 years are not in school.

It further noted that only 61 percent of 6-11 year-olds regularly attend primary school and only 35.6 percent of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education.

As of now, the figures have increased showing that initiatives by both the federal and state governments have failed over several administrations. Recent data from UNICEF shows that out-of-school children in Nigeria have increased to 20 million.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are about 98 million children out of school.

In another development, the National Bureau of Statistics report on Nigeria’s child labour shows that 24.67 million children in the country were engaged in labour activities that were injurious to their physical and mental development as of 2022.

This figure represents 39.23 per cent of the total 62.90 million children population in Nigeria as of that year. But, the federal government said the figure could have increased to 43 per cent in 2023.

NBS data further showed that more boys (39.6 per cent) were in child labour than girls (38.8 per cent).

The trend in the education budget

In 2006, the High-level Group on Education for All (EFA) recommended that governments allocate between 4% and 6% of their Gross National Product (GNP) towards education, and additionally, dedicate 15% to 20% of their total budgets to the education sector.

However, data monitored by Ripples Metric shows that the Nigerian government has failed to allocate as much as 10 per cent to the sector.

In 2020, N607.66 billion was allocated to the Ministry of Education. The amount represents 5.6 per cent of the total year’s budget. In 2021, the allocation to the sector increased to N771.46 billion, which is 5.6 per cent of the total budget in 2021.

Also, in 2022, the amount dropped to 5.2 per cent of the total budget, which is N900.4 billion allocated to the sector. In 2023, N1.08 trillion was allocated to the education sector representing 4.9 per cent of the total budget for that year.

By: James Odunayo

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