Many chilling indicators underscore the crisis in Nigeria’s education sector, as depicted in a recent focus on that sector. They include but are not limited to, frequent industrial unrests, low funding, the embarrassing mass number of out-of-school children and the devastating drain on the country’s lean resources, with billions of dollars spent on foreign education while institutions at home struggle to survive. Education is too important to neglect, as it is the major means to secure the country’s future.  The government, and all other stakeholders, should leverage the global focus on Education Day to prioritise education through sufficient funding, quality monitoring and constant evaluation.

The decadence in the sector was amplified recently by the Catholic Church when it called on the government to take immediate and decisive action to address the country’s education crisis. The occasion was the International Day for Education, when the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), decried the millions of children kept out of school, insisting that education remained an inalienable right for every child.

In a statement co-signed by Rev, Fr. Peter Babangida, Director of Church & Society; Rev. Fr. Michael Umoh, Director of Social Communications and Rev. Fr. Michael Banjo, Secretary General of the Catholic Secretariat, the church affirmed the importance of education as a tool for societal transformation. The church said: “In Nigeria, where millions of children remain out of school, we face a crisis that demands urgent collective action. We cannot be tired of reminding ourselves that education is an inalienable right that must be accessible to every child.”

The Catholic Secretariat deserves the support of all well-meaning Nigerians to demand immediate action to resolve the lingering crisis in education. It begins with the commitment of the government to make education a priority as propagated in the educational objectives of the Constitution of the Federal Republic (1999). In Section 18 under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, Chapter Two, the Constitution announces that “government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.” The Constitution promises that the government shall eradicate illiteracy, and provide free, compulsory and universal education, free university education and free adult literacy programme.

Regrettably, however, the government has failed to fulfil its obligations as manifested in poor funding, aggravated by corruption, and lack of commitment. Whereas the universal recommendation (United Nations) for funding education is between four to six per cent of countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 15 to 20 per cent of annual budgets, the Nigerian government has failed repeatedly to adhere to the recommendation. The allocation to education in the 2024 budget was less than seven per cent. In the 2025 budget, education has been allotted 7.08 per cent, still a far cry from the global benchmark.

The situation in most states is abysmal, due to under-funding. In October 2024, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), launched its first international conference on girl-child education, where they committed to allocating at least 15 per cent of their annual budgets to fund education. But the reality is that, of the entire N66.11 trillion 2025 budget of the Federal Government and 22 states, only N6.13 trillion is earmarked for education, representing 9.27 per cent. The implication is that many states have refused to attain their own 15 per cent pledge as well as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO’s) 26 per cent, and the World Bank’s 20 per cent recommendation. Only eight states managed to surpass the funding thresholds. That’s a recipe for future crises.

The United Nations reported that one in three Nigerian children is out of school, 10.2 million at the primary school level and 8.1 million at the junior secondary school level. It added that insufficient funding has caused a shortfall of 378,000 classrooms and about 278,000 teachers.
The point must also be emphasised that Nigerian leaders, especially the political class know the importance of investing in quality education. A tiny class of political and business elite spend an enormous amount to acquire costly overseas education for their children and wards.

In the first nine months of 2024, it is reported that Nigeria spent $1.8 billion on foreign education, a 26 per cent increase over that of the same period in 2023. Between 2010 and 2020, Nigeria was reported to have spent $28.65 billion on foreign education. In 2021, nearly 85,000 Nigerian students were enrolled in foreign tertiary institutions.

Yet, governments are stingy about investing in education at home. Global transparency bodies have traced sources of overseas education funding to stolen monies. The Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration should put a stop to this criminality and acts of self-affliction.

Equally condemnable are religious and cultural practices that relegate formal education to the background. As the numbers attest, out-of-school children are more in the North, just as girl-child education is not accorded priority in certain parts of the country. Whereas female children of the elite are sent to the best schools, children of poor people are groomed and funded at mass weddings. This is callous and condemnable. It is a system that begets poverty and perpetuates misery.

States and the Federal Government should be transparent and accountable with intervention programmes such as the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), which unfortunately have been rendered as avenues for political patronage and misapplication of resources.

This is the time for the government to honour its social contract with the people by making education available and affordable. Let there be incentives for education to counter the negative narrative among young people, such as ‘education is a scam’. The government can do this by enhancing employment opportunities to fulfil the dreams of those who invest in education.

Let there be periodic tweaks in schools’ curriculum for updates and skills that are useful for the modern-day workplace. Those who are steeped in obsolete ideology and tradition must realise that the world has left Nigeria behind. The country is pitifully behind on all indices and the fastest way to catch up is through qualitative education.