Why we are giving Nigeria N40bn – Brown
What is your mission in Nigeria?The international community would be in a position to contribute $250m and that would be enhanced with an additional $250m that the federal government would put up for education making $500m in total. This is principally money that would go to increasing enrolment in the schools, increasing provision for teacher […]
What is your mission in Nigeria?
The international community would be in a position to contribute $250m and that would be enhanced with an additional $250m that the federal government would put up for education making $500m in total. This is principally money that would go to increasing enrolment in the schools, increasing provision for teacher training and re-training and helping develop new technologies.
We are also in a position to say that some of the new technology innovations are going to be available for Nigerian education. Econet is offering to run a pilot in Nigeria where it would feed the curriculum through mobile phones and tablets; and donate the tablets for that purpose. Crusader, which is an online university, is offering to run a teacher training college and it is now up to the Nigerian government if it wishes to take this up. The Khan Academy which is one of the most modern curriculum deliverers online and is teaching millions of people around the world is offering to do their courses not just in English, Spanish, Portuguese and so on but also in languages that are relevant to Nigeria and Africa.
So a lot of new technology is going to be available for children to be able to learn, and it makes it possible for children even in the most remote areas, in some of the poorest families to soon have access to some of the knowledge and information that is available in some of the great libraries of the world. It puts within the reach of a child in the poor area some of the learning materials that really have been reserved for private schools in America or Europe at a university like Harvard.
So it potentially changes the whole game in the way that I described that young people, no matter what their background, no matter what their location are in a position to access education materials of the newest of technologies.
I would be coming back in to Nigeria in May 2014 to record progress and there would be other visits taking place by development ministers in the next few months. We are determined to help Nigeria reach its aim which is to get the 10.5 million children who are not in school to get these numbers down. So Nigeria can get to a position where, this great country, middle-income country with great resources is in a position to say that finally every child is in school.
You’ve interacted with government officials, from your assessment why do you think we are struggling with the education sector?
The Kuje Science Primary School was the school I visited. It is a great school with more than 2,000 pupils. There is a huge pressure because of the population rises which may have to cater for 3,000 students. We have to build more classrooms and that tells the story of a country where population is rising fast. So it is hardly surprising that there is pressure on capacity. You have got a very fast rising population and I said when I spoke that Nigeria would be the third largest country in the world during the century and so this population rise is putting extra pressure on education. But of course in the North, more needs to be done, particularly to help girls and girl education is very important to us. I think girl education and the right of girls to education is one of the greatest civil right issue of our time and I linked up Malala, the Pakistan girl with a girl in Nigeria to talk about the common problems that they face where both of them are trying to make sure that every girl in their community gets a chance to go to school.
I think we are part of a world-wide movement where girls discriminated against in the past are now themselves demanding a right to education and that is one of the new pressure points in Nigeria, where girls themselves would be fighting for their right to education.
Who is providing the $250m, is it a loan and what is its sustainability?
The USAID is providing $100m, the Global Partnership for Education is providing a $100m, the European Union is saying if Nigeria applies then 10m percent of the European Union contribution to Nigeria over the next seven years would be for education and there is also proposal to help in other areas with cash transfers. We want to help girls, particularly when they get to school, we are prepared to support the Nigerian government and the states as they introduce cash benefits for families where girls go to school. So if your family is for example relying on child labour and is prepared to give that up, we would provide cash transfers to that family. A number of states are doing that already and this is something we can do in the future. So that is where the money is coming from but there are other potential funders looking at what they could do.
These are grants, they are not loans and it would be over a two or three year period.
After interacting with our government representatives can you give us your sense of judgement in terms of their commitment to improving the standard of education?
I was impressed by their commitment because Nigeria has addressed agriculture and you have rising productivity and production in agriculture. Nigeria has been addressing health, like the problems with polio and now the President wishes to address the challenges of education and I see the partnership between the international community and the Nigerian people as absolutely vital to this. We cannot expect that Nigeria with the levels of poverty it has and the numbers to be able to do that quickly without international support and so the partnership is important. Of course we are relying on the states and it is not just the President. Some of the state governors want to develop their own detailed plans to improve education. I see this as a really important moment for Nigerian education.
We know the challenge, we know the international community now wants to do more to help but we know the government itself and the state governors want to do more.
Nigeria has been enjoying support from international development partners for so many years now, yet the problem of access and quality to education persists. Is funding really the issue?
If you have got 10.5 million children not in school then you are going to need more money to get them to school, if you are short of a million teachers then you are going to need more money to train these teachers. So there is absolutely no doubt that you need finance but you can’t have finance without reform; you need to reform. Every country understands now what needs to be done in education; you need qualified teachers, you need good leadership in your schools with better capacity to administer; you also need to improve the curriculum and learn also from new technology.
Nigeria can make a huge leap forward because the modern technology that was not available 50 years ago is something that could be applied instantly if you have the right conditions. The quality matters but money is also important and we are providing money for reform.
The Nigerian education system was modelled after the British system but somehow we do not seem to achieve the same results. What should we do differently?
Every education system is reviewing and renewing. I don’t think there is any education system in the world that is satisfied with what it is doing. You have obviously inherited some good things from Britain and maybe you think you have inherited some bad things from Britain but you have to make your own way in the world, from learning from every system in the world, from learning from what works.
One country can’t teach us everything. We can learn from all.