Education International Research
1.1 Expanding School Provision: Public and Private In 2000, Nigeria signed up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and, in 2015, to the SDGs. The first target for SDG 4 outlines a vision for free, equitable, and quality schooling for all children. In Nigeria, however, the government’s commitments on education have not been delivered (Imam, 2012; Federal Ministry of Education, 2015). The private sector has intervened and the significant number of private schools in Lagos and many other Nigerian cities continues to increase. In Lagos, education has become a major commercial endeavour with up to an estimated 18,000 private schools operating there – an approximate increase of 50 per cent since 2011 (Härmä, 2011a; Rosales-Rogge, Kadiri, & Hinton, 2014). Aid money has helped push this growth with DFID funding a special programme to support the expansion of private schools and public private partnerships (DFID, 2013). What does this mean for the SDG promise? Accountability for enhancing access, participation, and attainment, thus addressing quality and equality, rests with the state government. Under the 2004 Universal Basic Education Act, basic education is managed by the states and local government, with some financial input and policy direction from the Federal Government (Imam, 2012). However, in Lagos, the state’s investment in education has not kept pace with demand and accountability has often been interpreted as building relationships with the private sector, rather than earmarking resources to ensure free basic education for all (Adelabu & Rose, 2004; Roshan, Lomme, Hima & Santibanez, 2016). Private schools began to proliferate in Lagos in the 1980s, linked by some to responses to the teachers’ strikes in that decade (Adelabu & Rose, 2004, p. 50), which were part of widespread opposition to the effects of structural adjustments, which were particularly harsh in Nigeria. National spending per capita on education dropped from 5.6 NAIRA in 1981 to 1.1 NAIRA in 1988 and the share of education spending in the national budget fell from eight per cent in 1984 to about two per cent in 1988 (Babalola, Lungwangwa, & Adeyinka, 1999, p. 85-86). In 2004, it was estimated that 2.5 million children in Lagos were in school and one million of these (40 per cent) were attending unapproved private schools (Adelabu & Rose, 2004, p. 50). A decade later, Härmä (2011a, 2013a) surveyed 11,896 schools in the state which had an enrolment of 1,385,190 pupils. Private schools accounted for 57 per cent of all enrolments with 12,098 private schools enumerated. These included schools serving children from both rich and relatively poor homes. Härmä (2013a) noted that 10,094 of these schools were primary schools, 2,335 served junior secondary level, and 1,713 served the senior secondary level. In contrast, the government ran 991 primary schools, 308 junior secondary, and 309 senior secondary schools. Härmä found that many of these private 14