School-community ties wear thin: how stakeholders view the decline of Nigeria’s primary schools

Communities play a vital role in Nigeria’s primary schools, helping to build, maintain and run them. But is the ‘social capital’ of community participation in education being eroded? How far can parents and communities fill the gap when government provision of services is lacking?

A study by the World Bank, considers the views of parents, teachers, pupils, community leaders and educational administrators in fifty-four primary schools and communities across the country. Standards in primary schools are low and declining and there are many major obstacles to improving them. Parents increasingly feel that the state is not meeting its side of the social contract.

From 1976 to 1983, enrolment in Nigeria’s primary schools rose dramatically under an ambitious policy of universal primary education. With the economic crisis in the mid-1980s, funding for education was reduced and enrolments dropped from a high of 93 percent in 1982/3 to 78 percent in 1990. Quality declined, many schools introduced fees and parents started to withdraw children from school. The education system has also experienced frequent changes in the management structure at federal, state and local government levels.

At the same time, communities themselves are changing. The widening gap between rich and poor makes it harder for communities to speak with one voice and parents with more income are leaving the state school system. Teachers are now less likely to live in the community and their social status has fallen. Against this background, the researchers assessed how satisfied stakeholders were with the primary schools and what they saw as the main barriers to improvement.

At workshops held to discuss the consultations, six main problem areas were identified primarily linked to inadequate funding:

• Overwhelming demands are sometimes made on parents and communities to contribute to the schools and their roles are not clearly defined.
• Teachers’ motivation has been eroded by low pay, poor working conditions, inadequate facilities, insufficient training and the declining status of their profession.
• School infrastructure and facilities are so poor that they are not good for learning, pupil safety, security or health.
• Text-books and other teaching materials are inadequate.
• Enrolment and attendance varies between schools and regions. Enrolment is lower in the north while attendance is lower in rural areas.
• Changes in the management of primary education have reduced the role of local government and caused tensions between local and state departments.

Recommendations to educational funding policymakers include:

• adjusting the federal government’s budget allocation to cover the capital and recurring costs of schools
• reviewing and formalising the cost-sharing arrangements among government and other stakeholders.

Source(s):
‘Hard Lessons: Primary Schools, Community and Social Capital in Nigeria’, World Bank Technical Paper 420, by P. Francis et al, 1998 Full document.

Funded by: World Bank

id21 Research Highlight: 20 June 2002

Further Information:
Paul Francis
School of Development Studies
University of East Anglia
Norwich
NR4 7TJ
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1603 592807
Contact the contributor: paul.francis@uea.ac.uk

School of Development Studies, UEA, UK

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