Saving The Public Education System

According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), it is estimated that 10.5 million children age 6-14 in Nigeria are out of school. Even though, figures show the extent of the problem, across many states, especially in the North-West, North-East, and parts of the Middle Belt, schools are shutting down in ways that are both visible and invisible. In Bornu, Yobe and Adamawa alone, official figures indicated that at least 802 schools remain closed and 497 classrooms are listed as destroyed, with another 1,392 damaged but repairable. In many states, schools are officially closed because communities have fled from attacks. Last month alone, the Federal Government of Nigeria announced the closure of 47 boarding schools across the federation for fear of terrorists’ attack since the abduction of 25 school children in Maga, Danko Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State. Other schools remain “open” only in government records, while the structures stand empty, roofs blown away, classrooms deserted, and teachers long gone. What is emerging is a system in name only — a network of nonfunctional schools that no longer deliver learning. In too many places, public schooling has deteriorated into a hollow ritual rather than a meaningful pathway to knowledge.

While of recent the most immediate driver of this collapse is insecurity, experts have explained that the public education system in Nigeria has seen chronic underfunding, lack or insufficiency of essential infrastructure, the quality of teaching in public schools is often compromised due to factors such as inadequate teacher training, low motivation, a miserable wage, and poor working conditions and disparities in access to education. These challenges have been exacerbated by the persistent spread of banditry, kidnapping, insurgent violence, and rural displacement which made schooling impossible for thousands of children. Communities in parts of Kaduna, Niger, Katsina, Zamfara, Plateau, Borno, and Yobe now live with the terrifying reality that sending a child to school could be a life-threatening decision.

The Safe Schools Initiative, once launched with optimism, has faded into irrelevance as the security situation continues to deteriorate. Entire villages have moved away, leaving behind empty school buildings overtaken by weeds and silence. In many places, the government does not even bother to announce closures; the schools simply die on their own.

As mentioned earlier insecurity and chronic underfunding are just one part of the problem. In many states, misallocation of educational resources have deepened the rot. Year after year, state governments announce budgets filled with optimistic promises, but releases are partial, delayed, or diverted. Funds meant for school rehabilitation end up in political patronage pipelines.

Local government education authorities remain financially crippled and structurally incapable of managing basic schooling. Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) intervention funds are either underutilized or mismanaged. The result is an infrastructure landscape that is collapsing faster than it can be repaired: classrooms without roofs, schools without toilets or water, torn desks, no learning materials, and no sense of dignity for the children who attend.

More alarming still is the growing teacher crisis. This is perhaps the most dangerous dimension of all, because classrooms can be rebuilt, but human capital cannot be replaced overnight. Teachers in many states are underpaid, unpaid, overstretched, or unmotivated. Some have not received salaries for months; others work under conditions so harsh that they abandon the profession entirely. Young graduates no longer see teaching as a viable career. Trained teachers migrate abroad, switch professions, or simply refuse to accept rural postings. In some schools, one teacher handles multiple classes at once; in others, volunteers or unqualified assistants “teach” as best they can. No country has ever risen above the quality of its teachers, and Nigeria cannot expect to be the first.

As the public education system collapses, parents—especially the poor—are being forced into desperate alternatives. Some withdraw their children entirely and push them into street hawking or apprenticeship paths. Others send them to unregulated private schools with questionable standards. In some northern communities, informal religious schools become the only available option. The consequence is a widening inequality: children from affluent families remain in functional private schools while the poor are abandoned to a future of illiteracy, vulnerability, and diminished life chances. A society that stratifies education stratifies opportunity, and a society that stratifies opportunity undermines its own social stability.

The cost of this quiet educational collapse will not fully manifest today. It will reveal itself in ten or twenty years, when Nigeria tries to build an economy that requires skilled labour, or attempts democratic reforms that require an informed citizenry, or faces security challenges worsened by uneducated, unemployable youth. What Nigeria is experiencing is not just an education problem; it is a national development emergency that threatens the political, economic, and security architecture of the country.

There is no path forward except bold, coordinated national action. Nigeria must declare a National Education Emergency—a presidential-level acknowledgment that the country’s future is at stake. Such a declaration would force a united effort across federal, state, and local governments and would enable rapid response mechanisms similar to those used in public health emergencies. Every state must conduct and publish a School Functionality Audit identifying which schools are truly operational, which are partially functional, and which are abandoned. Without accurate data, we are governing blindly.

States with multiple dead or dying schools should rethink the model entirely. Instead of stretching minimal resources thinly across many nonfunctional facilities, governments should consolidate them into well-resourced cluster schools or mega learning hubs with proper security and reliable transport for pupils. Nigeria cannot build an industrial economy, reduce insecurity, or sustain democracy with a generation of children growing up uneducated. This quiet crisis—this slow-motion collapse of the nation’s public education system—is not just an education issue, it is the foundation of every other national problem we face today.

This newspaper believes the country must confront it with honesty and urgency. A nation that refuses to educate its children is not preparing for the future; it is preparing for failure.