A recent report by the World Bank, titled “Human Capital Public Expenditure and Institutional Review”, has pointed out that Nigeria needs to spend a minimum of $1,000 on each primary student in order to reduce the startlingly high rates of learning Poverty in the country. The report highlights the financial and governance obstacles impeding Nigeria’s ability to provide Basic Education and primary healthcare. It also revealed that the country’s allocation to the sector, which is just 1.3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is very low. This is a substantial decrease from the average of 1.7 to 1.8 percent recorded between 2010 and 2018.
According to the report, Nigeria invests a considerably lower amount in Education than many of its regional counterparts. The country lags behind East African countries like Kenya and Zambia and West African countries like Senegal, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire in terms of spending. Ghana’s 2023 education budget is 3.09 percent of its GDP, which forms only 12.97 percent of government expenditure for 2023. The recommendation that Nigeria ought to allocate a minimum of $1,000 for each primary student, means that the current level of spending would need to be increased six times.
Spending per primary student is 3.3 percent of GDP per capita.
In comparison to nations with lower levels of learning poverty, the nation’s current spending per primary student which is just 3.3 percent of GDP per capita is far lesser. This is in sharp contrast to the bold promises made by the country’s political elites to increase financing for the sector to 4 percent of GDP by 2025, or 22.5 percent of the country’s total budget. In 2021, the sector only made up 10.1% of all government spending, which is less than both Nigeria’s own obligations and international benchmarks like the Incheon Declaration which recommends 4 percent of GDP and 15–20 percent of budgets.
As per the report, Nigeria can afford to commit at least 2.4 percent of its GDP to the sector considering its economic level. That would put it on par with Pakistan’s level. Sub-Saharan African nations allocate a far larger portion of their GDP to education. For example, Cameroon spends 3.2 percent of its GDP. Spending rates in Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire are comparable, at 3.3 and 3.4 percent, respectively. Senegal is the country in Western Africa with the largest GDP proportion dedicated to education, at 5.5 percent.
7.9% of 2024 budget lower than UNESCO recommendation.
The country spends nearly the same amount as Sudan does, despite significant income disparities. More significantly, a far larger Investment level than the current one is needed given its high level of learning poverty. Countries with lower quarters of learning poverty (Q1–Q3) allot about 20 percent of their GDP per person to every primary school pupil. Furthermore, Nigeria will need to boost its expenditure in basic education ninefold from the 2022 level by 2030 in order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 due to a large proportion of out-of-school children and a rapidly expanding school-age population.
It was reported that the federal government’s 2024 budget proposal allotted N2.18 trillion for the sector (approximately 7.9 percent of the proposed ₦27.5 trillion overall budget). The amount allotted to education is less than the 15–20 percent of Government Spending that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommends developing nations like Nigeria commit to the sector. Following his assumption to office, President Bola Tinubu had pledged to enroll and re-enroll millions of students into school and overhaul the postsecondary education system leveraging a sustainable Finance model, with the aim of improving the country’s education system.
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Tinubu has initiated several significant reforms and developments such as signing of the Student Loan Act, establishment of a National Education Data System and comprehensive reforms to enhance educational standards under the Renewed Hope Agenda. Nevertheless, stakeholders in the sector have recently declared that the status quo has not changed and that some measures have not yet proven to be implemented. It was stated that even after one year in office, many children are still out of school, labour unions continue to strike at tertiary institutions, and access to education is limited.