AS President Bola Tinubu marks one year in office, the state of education under his administration has been marred with a series of challenges bordering on financial burdens, dragging student loans, and attacks on schools and students. The ICIR, in this report which is part of the series “Tinubu’s one year in office”, highlights some of the strides and challenges recorded during the first year of Tinubu’s administration.
School fees astronomical hike
Following the emergence of Tinubu as president, many tertiary institutions, particularly universities, alongside unity schools, increased their school fees by over 100 per cent, while some were hiked by over 200 per cent.
The school fee hike immediately led to resistance from the students, with many universities’ students protesting the astronomical increase in the school fees, urging the federal government and the school management to reduce the fee.
Civil society organisations, parents and concerned Nigerians also joined in the fight against the increment, citing the economic hardships resulting from the ‘subsidy is gone’ declaration by Tinubu during his inauguration.
Some universities justified the hike in school fees by describing the development as the “prevailing economic realities and needs” to meet their obligations to students and staff.
They also claimed that the federal government should increase the budgetary allocations to education and ensure that schools are well-equipped, staffed, and capable of providing quality education.
The students of federal government colleges, known as Federal Unity Colleges, were not exempted as the government increased their tuition. According to a statement signed by the Director of Senior Secondary Education, Binta Abdulkadir, the new students are expected to pay ₦100,000 instead of the old N45,000.
Why universities increased fees – Tinubu’s government
Speaking on the increment of school fees, the Federal Ministry of Education explained that the institutions are introducing fees to cover the cost of accommodation and utilities.
In 2023, the ministry’s permanent secretary, Andrew Adejo, noted that the latest fee increment by some federal government-owned universities is not connected with the Student Loans Act.
Adejo clarified that due to the dissolution of the governing councils of the institutions, the ministry had taken on the responsibility of approving fee increases in their absence.
He mentioned that the ministry initially approved a fee increase request from the University of Lagos but ceased approval for others after Tinubu affirmed that federal government-owned institutions would remain tuition-free.
“What they (universities) collect is charges to cover the cost of accommodation, ICT, power, among others. It is the Governing Councils of the Universities that have the power to approve such charges for them.
“The only university that increased charges after the signing of the Student Loans Act is the University of Lagos. They came to the ministry with a proposal to Increase their charges because all governing councils were dissolved, and we gave them approval.
“Immediately that was done, there was a resolution from the House stopping increase of fees and the president also gave a directive stopping any increase in fees and that is where it is, even though several others have brought their proposals,” Adejo said.
Students loan drags
In what was believed to be an alleviation of the economic hardships and school fees increment, on Monday, June 12, Tinubu signed the Students Loans Bill into Law. The law was expected to enable indigent students in public tertiary institutions to take government loans to pay their tuition fees.
However, nearly a year later, the enactment of the law remains stagnant.
The ICIR reports that the bill had earlier been passed by the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate, where it also sailed through in November 2023 but attracted criticisms from many Nigerians, including members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), who described it as unnecessary.
The union also described the bill as an attempt by the government to systematically abandon funding of education in public universities.
With the launch plan failing to materialise, Tinubu took action on March 14, writing to the National Assembly to repeal and reenact the student loan bill.
Before now, the executive secretary of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, Akintunde Sawyer, had said that the launch of the scheme was suspended indefinitely. He cited the need for corrections and alignment among stakeholders before a concrete rollout could happen.
Unlike the initial bill that was passed and subsequently repealed, the new Act removed the provision that required applicants’ families to earn an annual income of less than N500,000 before they could be eligible for the loan.
It also allows applicants to access loans that cover other fees aside from tuition, unlike the previous Act that limited applications to just tuition.
Attacks on schools, abduction of students
While the government grapples with the stalled implementation of the student loan programme, another pressing issue is attacks on schools and the abduction of students across the country.
In recent years, Nigeria has witnessed a disturbing trend of armed attacks targeting educational institutions, with militant groups, including Boko Haram and bandits, targeting schools and instilling fear among students, parents, and alike.
The abduction of students has become a particularly major issue also during the Tinubu’s first year, with no sight of subsiding anytime soon.
In several reports, The ICIR documents how Nigerian students have either been abducted on their way to schools or within school premises, with over 200 of them reported as kidnapped.
More recently, in March 2024, armed assailants attacked the Kuriga primary and secondary school in Kaduna State, abducting 137 students.
For instance, in Kuriga, a town in Kaduna state, 137 schoolchildren were kidnapped by bandits while preparing for their morning assembly. The students spents 16 days in captivity before they regained freedom.
On January 29, gunmen kidnapped school pupils and teachers from the Apostolic Faith Montessori School in Emure Ekiti, Ekiti State.
The pupils and their teachers were later released in the wee hours on Sunday, February 4, but the driver, who was also among the abductees, was killed and burnt by the kidnappers.
Education budget heavy on running cost
Nigeria’s education funding again failed to meet United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)’s standard, given President Tinubu’s allocation of only 5.98 per cent of the 2024 budget of N24.08 trillion to the sector.
The UNESCO sets a benchmark of at least 15 to 20 per cent of the national budget for education. However, the Nigerian government has failed to meet the benchmark year after year.
A review of the 2024 approved budget revealed that N1.59 trillion, or 5.5 per cent, of the N28.77 trillion, was allocated to education.
This was despite the president’s several promises during his campaign and post-election addresses to reform the education sector by augmenting funding.
Out of the allocation to the Education Ministry, N480 billion (N480,781,350,182) was budgeted for capital projects, constituting 30.3 per cent, and the overhead budget stands at 4.5 per cent, totalling N72.1 billion (N72,124,230,514).
Meanwhile, the allocation for the personnel is slightly over a trillion (1,036,484,193,887), translating to 65.2 per cent of the budgeted amount to the ministry.
This also means that the largest bulk of the money goes to paying salaries, with just about a quarter of the allocation for capital projects.
Tinubu’s payment of ASUU withheld salaries, ensures undisrupted academics
Meanwhile, in a significant attempt to ensure undisrupted academics activities by the Academic Staff Union, Tinubu, in October 2023, waived the “No Work, No Pay Policy” of the Federal Government and approved the release of four of the eight months’ salaries of ASUU members withheld by the administration of the former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.
The salaries were withheld after the lecturers went on strike between February and October 2024 to force the government to meet their demands.
Tinubu, in a statement released by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, revealed that the waiver “will allow for the previously striking members of ASUU to receive four months of salary accruals out of the eight months of salary which was withheld during the eight-month industrial action undertaken by the union.”
The ICIR reports that ASUU often downed tools over unmet demands by the Federal Government, including a 2009 agreement with the lecturers, which the government failed to implement.
The union went on strike five times in five years under the immediate past Federal Government, which was headed by former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The group was on strike in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2022. However, a hitch-free academic year was recorded in 2023.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: umustapha@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M