Free and compulsory education, often mouthed by both federal and state governments, got a definitive legal seal when a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja declared recently that it is an enforceable right of every Nigerian child, at the basic level. This is a landmark judgement, a foundation as it were, which undoubtedly will enhance the quality of education generally.
A civil society group, the Legal Defence and Assistance Project, had, in 2015, set this in motion when it filed a suit at the court presided over by John Tsoho, seeking the enforceability of the right, as espoused in Section 18 (3) in Chapter 2, of the 1999 Constitution, as amended. Hitherto, it was thought not to be justiciable.
But Tsoho in his judgement said, “By the combined effect of Section 18 (3) (a) of the 1999 Constitution and Section 2(1) of the Compulsory, Free Basic Education Act, 2004, the right to free and compulsory primary education and free junior secondary education for all qualified Nigerian citizens are enforceable rights in Nigeria.”
Government pays no fidelity to Chapter 2 of the Constitution, which contains the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, where Section 18 (3) is domiciled, because of the perception that it serves as a mere compass to inspire action. In broad terms, the section enjoins the government to ensure equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels and “shall as when practicable, provide free and compulsory and universal primary education.” Therefore, it is now a breach of the constitution for any governor to abuse it.
In reaching the decision, Tsoho was enamoured of a 2002 Supreme Court pronouncement, which said the right could only be enforced through legislation. The National Assembly UBE Act 2004 did just that. Under the law, the first nine years of education, comprising six years of primary and three years of junior secondary, are free. The defunct Western Region in the First Republic, under Obafemi Awolowo as Premier, proved that free education is possible in Nigeria, with prudent management of resources.
Even with the UBE, states still pay lip service to education. In all the states, reports of how pupils learn under trees abound; and where classrooms exist, they sit on bare floors. The shortage of trained teachers is acute, leading to quacks filling up the vacuum, just as irregular payment of salaries has inexorably become part and parcel of the teaching profession.
Shockingly, primary schools in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, are not free from this malaise. In March 2016, media reports showed how pupils of LEA Primary School, Unguwar Kwaso, Gwagwalada Area Council, were receiving lessons under a tree. Lack of an enabling environment that promotes learning was tragically in evidence at a dilapidated public primary school, in Alapere, Lagos, when a seven-year boy, Lawal Buhari, fell into a pit latrine and died in 2011. Painfully too, early this month,Daily Trust reported how a female JSS 2 student, named Chinyere, of Community Secondary School, Adazi-Ani in Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State, was crushed to death after being sent home for non-payment of fees.
However, free education goes beyond free tuition. Where quacks take the place of well-trained teachers and the environment negates learning, what pupils get is anything but quality free education. The situation in Sokoto State as of 2012 was most horrifying. A former Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Mohammed Modibbo, had stated during a visit to the Senate Committee on Education that 80 per cent of its primary school teachers were unqualified. Most perplexing, he stressed, was that more than 50 per cent of the teachers in the state could not read because they were not qualified.
Without a functional basic education, the foundation of the country’s entire educational architecture, therefore, is ruinous. That was the Federal Government’s realisation when it set up UBEC, funded with two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, annually, to assist the states in addressing the challenges. But instead of them taking advantage of it, some of the governors sabotage the effort by either failing to access the fund, or, when they do, often, the funds are embezzled.
UBEC statistics indicate that N63.4 billion has yet to be accessed by the states from 2005 to August 10, 2016. None of them was able to collect its share of N607.84 million in 2016. Only Anambra, Bauchi, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, Gombe, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kwara and Sokoto, out of 36 states, picked the N876 million provided for each state in 2015.
With Abia and Nasarawa states having N4.3 billion each, as outstanding, to lead the pack of defaulters, basic education is the ultimate loser in those places. There is a shortage of schools in each state. It is a fact, which Lagos State realised recently, and vowed to build some schools for the riverine Ilashe community and other areas neglected for years with the N60 billion it has set aside for the project.
Free tuition boosts access to education. A World Bank 2005 Survey unfurled that enrolment increased in Uganda in 1997 by 68 per cent, and Malawi recorded 49 per cent in 1994, when they adopted free education, along with 11 other countries in The Third World. In Germany, education is free until the university level.
Here, government’s failure in education has encouraged private entrepreneurs to seize the landscape. Unfortunately, the terrain is largely unregulated, mercantile-driven and full of quacks. The country needs to halt this drift.
Every other thing can wait; certainly, education of the child cannot, as it is the key to life and well-being of the entire society. The country has to return to the past when primary education was so functional that school leavers were made for life; and those with the thirst for higher education studied privately and made it up to the university level. Civil society groups should put governors on their toes so that the country could make the best out of Tsoho’s judgement. That the over 10.5 million children who are out of school in Nigeria represent 47 per cent of the total of such children in the world is a shame that should be reversed.
