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using student performance data in English which is available only for government school
students. However, the level of learning is also low in case of English. This could partly explain
the demand for madrasahs in Nigeria. While we have looked at the role of a number of inputs,
we do not find a clear pattern in the association between resources and student outcomes. At
the family level, the resource effect is largely absent. However, in case of school factors,
provisions of electricity, library and toilet seem to matter along with teacher absenteeism. The
negative influence of teacher absenteeism highlights the lack of accountability and commitment
among teachers.
3.4.6. Stakeholder perceptions
While the stakeholder survey took place in three states, responses from two states (Sokoto and
Oyo) have been analyzed. The sample comprised of school teachers, principals and official of
state ministry of education and local government education authority. The non-school
stakeholders included officials from local NGOs, international and national organisations
working in education and development issues. The majority of the stakeholders (over 40%)
interviewed in Nigeria identified school leadership (or effectiveness of the principal) and high
learning outcomes of school children as the most important features of an effective school. This
was followed by an emphasis on continuous professional development of teachers, a supportive
learning environment for children, frequent monitoring of teaching and learning activities. A
good number of stakeholders also identified active engagement of parents and community as an
important feature of an effective school. However, only around 10% respondents identified
regular presence of teachers (or low teacher absenteeism) as important. Physical facilities were
not perceived as important by anyone despite mounting evidence on low provision and
depreciated nature of facilities (Gershberg et al. 2016). The emphasis on leadership and learning
outcome is, however, in consonance with prevailing themes in Nigerian literature and news in
the recent time, which possibly influenced the opinion of the respondents (see Adamu, 2017;
Sani-Othman, 2017; Vanguard, 2017).
Given the importance of school leadership, stakeholders were asked to name the three most
important features of an effective school principal. For comparison purpose, they were also
asked to describe the three most important factors that define an effective school teacher.
Figure 3.4.12 reports stakeholder responses as proportion of respondents identifying a
category as one of the three most important features. Data is presented separately for responses
relating to principals and teachers. The total does not add up to 1 since we sum across three
responses for each y-axis category.
The majority (nearly 50%) identified being “well-qualified/trained” as the most important
feature of an effective principal. This was followed by being “focused on improving teaching and
learning practices”. Nearly 40%of the respondents also identified proven leadership experience
as one of the most important features for an effective principal. Promoting learning
opportunities, nurturing healthy student-teacher and parent-teacher relationship and being
motivated were ranked as important by around 20% stakeholders.
In case of an effective teacher, being “well-qualified/trained” was identified by over 60%
stakeholders as the most important feature. This was followed by “being good at
communication”, “being supportive of weaker students”, “focused on improving teaching and
learning practices”, “good at engaging with children”, “promoting learning opportunities” and so
on. Surprisingly, being teacher motivation was not identified as important. As noted above, there
has been increasing discussion on teacher quality and performance across Nigeria lately in