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commit more time and make extra effort to deliver their services than public schools’ teachers
that have been observed to have more tendency to exhibit truancy (Humphreys and Crawfurd,
2014).
The role of civil society
The role of civil society in Nigeria education varies and includes funding, direct provision of
education, advocacy, research monitoring and evaluation of various aspects of the country’s
education. Private provision of education has been discussed in section 2.4. Other contributions
of the civil society are largely in forms of civil society organizations and communities’ services.
The civil society organisations (non-governmental organisations) implement a wide range of
locally initiated and donor-driven projects such as listed in section 2.2. Two important examples
of community support primarily are informed of Parent Teachers Association (PTA) and School-
Based Management Committees. As noted earlier, SBMCs contribute to ensuring good relations
exist between schools and their host communities, serve as an avenue for channeling community
inputs in school administration, funding, monitoring and evaluation. The PTAs are much older
than the SBMCs and particularly contribute to ensuring smooth operations of schools,
recruitment of additional teachers and provision of financial, labour, infrastructural and
material support to schools. Pupils pay PTA levies through which these provisions are made to
schools (FME 2005; Dunne et al. 2013). The PTA sometimes recruit and pay salaries of teachers
they recruited (Theobald et al. 2007; Dunne et al. 2013). The introduction of the free UBE
scheme in principle barred PTA levies in public schools but available reports indicate that they
remain widespread (Lincove 2009; ActionAid 2011; NPC and RTI International 2011; Dunne et
al. 2013).
There are diverse opportunities for public-private partnership (PPP), which refers to a form of
collaboration between the public and the private sector, in the provision of education in Nigeria
but limited are records of successful partnerships, besides international donor-supported
education project partnership. Irabor (2014) explains that the development of PPPs in Nigeria
has been slow because while the government reiterates some shortage of private sector with a
strong interest in investments, the private investors are concerned about the business
environment. The National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) demanded
inclusion of private schools in the UBE funding plan in 2009 but this seems mainly a demand for
government funding of their school and appeared not to be a request for requisite PPP (Adefeso,
Olateju, 2012). Known forms of existing PPP are largely temporary such as Educate a Child (EAC)
that involves Oando Foundation, different forms of short-term training and capacity building
projects with non-governmental organisations, digitization digitization and technology training
in Nigerian schools, research and, teacher training and capacity building (Oni, 2012; Dunne et
al, 2014; Gershberg et al, 2016; Obi, 2016; Vanguard, 2017).
Islamic education
Islamic education and Arabic language were integral parts of the Islamic religion that was
introduced in Nigeria in the 14th Century. Islamic education constitutes amajor formof religious
education in Nigeria. The National Policy on Education, section 26.1, provides that “State
Governments and FCT shall ensure the integration of formal basic education curriculum into
Qur’anic and Islamiya schools, and Special Needs schools” (FME, 2013). The Nigerian Education
Data Survey (NEDS) observes that 44% of Muslim children attended both religious formal
schools while 35% attended only religious schools and 11%was enrolled in formal schools only.
10%was not enrolled in any school at all (NPC & RTI, 2011). Qur’anic, Islamiyya, and Tsangaya