Fixing Nigeria part 2

Fixing Education part 2

How can we fund education in Nigeria? Any education systems is made up three elements working with the government.

1. The Students
2. The Teachers
3. The Infrastructure

In Nigeria, we have attempted to fund all three, and we have failed. Can we rejig this? We can. Let look at the big picture solutions

A. Students
The Universal Basic Education by law mandates the first 9 years of education to be free and compulsory, however Education in many states is not free, compulsory or qualitative. To pretend we are educating our kids is a dangerous game.

Universal Basic Education has failed it’s not working. How do we fix it? Many ways, but funding is a good place to start. First we have to refocus the entire FGN and State funding of education and make it specific to the Universal Basic Education (UBE), no TETFUND.

The UBE is funded by Federal Government Grant of not less than 2% of its consolidated revenue fund. This is grossly inadequate. UBE cannot educate Nigerians on “less than 2% of revenues”. In the 2016 budget, the amount earmarked for the UBE is N77b.If we divide N77b by number of kids in primary school alone i.e. 23m, it comes to N3,347…a pittance. If the entire proposed federal allocation to education is allocated ONLY to primary schools, that will be N18,744 a year. Who has paid N18,000 a year to educate his ward in Nigeria?

Let do quick math, the total budget is about N6t, if we allocate 10% to students alone that’s N600b, if we divide that by primary school students alone that N25,000 per student….just for primary school….still not enough..

what if we take N1.5trillion from the budgets of all states and local government by number of students, and add to the UBE? That now N2.1t, what if we mandated 100% of the NLNG taxes go to UBE, in 2015 it was $2b or about N400b, what if we also added 10% of VAT? .in essence we have a N2.0t annual fund for UBE…for ONLY students…. not teachers or chalk…students. Lets be clear, TEFFUND will be collapsed into the UBE…we focus of free education must be for Primary and Secondary Schools…..for now.

N2.0t is small, in 2102, Exam Ethics posted Nigerians spent N1.5t on students studying abroad…but lets stay in the big picture solutions. What do we do with this N2.0t…we use it to pay school fees of students. So if I build a school, the Government pays the school fees of the students that attend from Primary 1 to SS3…

The government does not own the school, it simply set standards and regulates, and pays the fees. This means the private sector can build schools, hire teachers and is guaranteed students if it maintains standards.

sell all the schools across Nigeria to the Private Individuals, the NUT, unions, cooperatives even PTAs. Thus all Primary Schools, Secondary Schools, Universities assets, land and buildings will be sold to the willing buyers.

The Federal Government will guarantee school fees and the new owners will agree the cost of education. These are assets worth trillions. Sell them. Give the proceeds of the sale to the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Authority to set up the Nigerian Education Endowment Fund. This fund will pay a dividend yearly to a Student Loan fund who will give 0% loans to University students to pay for education.

So in essence, John Hopkins can partner with ASUU of University of Nigeria and say Pfizer ad GE, buy University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital or the Medical College, Govt still pays tuition of students, GE supplier medical equipment exclusively, Pfizer supplies drugs exclusively, the joint venture runs at a profit…ditto Innoson can invest the Mechanical Engineering dept. of University of Awka with his Chinese partners and use the school as his R&D laboratory.

So if a student is to study medicine, he can apply for a loan from the Student Loan Board, at 0%, pay for his education and repay over his working life. If he defaults or passes away the fund bears the loss from income earnings. This loan request cannot be denied, once the student gains admission, he qualifies for a loan…can apply and will receive approval.

 let the FGN set the standards for teachers, mandate curriculum but disengage the teachers from the employment of the State of Federal Government.

Let the Teachers from cooperatives bid to buy the FGN and state school infrastructure and attract students based on quality of results. ASUU can set up a trust, buy all the Universities and manage them with technical partners.

ASUU can partner with Nestle to fund R&D in agricultural universities, the tuition of the students is guaranteed. Once banks see tuition is guaranteed, they will fund the construction of new dormitories and facilities…. all ASUU has to do is run these schools within its fixed income. It can earn more by consulting; it can pay it self whatsoever it likes as salary.

The point is the Government alone cannot fund Education in Nigeria? in fact Primary schools are to be funded by the Local Governments but because Local Government system has failed in Nigeria, the Federal Government has had to step in, and the FGN has failed as well to guarantee world class educational outcomes for Nigerian students.…

So by combining the education resources of the federal and states, we can fund tuition alone. By selling the school infrastructure and “privatizing” not commercializing the schools FGN moves the responsibility to manage these facilities to the private sector, all they have to do is pay tuition. We also set up a fund that guarantees tuition is paid by university student, at no cost to the FGN, State and Local Governments.

The FGN and States have to focus exclusively on Primary and Secondary and leave the University funding alone, the students will pay for university with zero interest loans. Remember this, if we graduate students who can’t add or subtract they will enter the university without skills. You can’t become a doctor unless you understand basic biology.

The CBN said $600m is spent in first quarter of 2014 alone on school fee payments abroad, should we reorganize the education framework, we will attract those UK, American etc schools to set up shop here in Nigeria because tuition is guaranteed by the FGN for Universities. With this we strengthen our public school, introduce competition and reduce costs while guaranteeing increased enrollment rates.

This is not perfect, but its better than what we have today…

Its our problem, we can fix it