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to make the policies relatively ineffective. Important strategies like School Based Management
Committee (SBMC) and Community Accountability and Transparency Initiative (CATI) that have
capacity to promote good governance in education and promote provision of quality education
have either been poorly implemented or completely failed.
Fourth, both quality input and learning outcomes are still below the standard. The education
budget, teacher supply and quality, infrastructure and effective coordination of the education
sector still demand critical attention. There is a severe shortfall in qualified teacher supply
leading to a very high teacher-pupil ratio. Hiring more teachers to reduce class size and
increasing teacher salary were particularly emphasized as priority areas for investment if extra
funding became available. The low-quality inputs are evidence of the learning outcome.
Learners at all levels do not fully show they are learning enough. The gap between the country's
set quality and learning standard and what learners actually manifest at the completion of
different levels of education. These suggest critical attention to quality issues in Nigeria
education.
Fifth, Nigeria is not strongly integrated into the global survey and assessment frameworks like
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).
Information on nationwide learning outcomes are sparse and do not seem reliable. Yet they
suggest very low student learning outcomes.
Sixth, limited information exists on the actual number of and formal education learning
outcomes in madrasahs. This is partly because, besides those that offer formal education
curriculum, they are not largely seen as formal education and their students are largely
considered as being out of education.
Seventh, some of the key factors that keep children out of education are linked to poverty (such
as early marriage and child labour) and inability to meet cost of education by households’, and
various poverty related interventions appear not to be effectively addressing these. Some of the
resultant effects of these are drops in enrolment rates and an increase in the number of out-of-
school children instead of a decrease. It is acknowledged that insecurity is a contributing factor
but both the government and various international actors have emphasized Boko Haram have
been, which majorly targeted education has been decimated (Guardian, 2015; Premium Times,
2016; UNICEF, 2016), suggesting that it might have not contributed to the current upsurge in
out-of-school-youth – from about 10.5 million in 2014 to about 13.2 million in 2017. There are
indicators that the existing interventions need critical evaluation because they are not
effectively addressing the root factors that keep the poor away from school (see aslo IACI, 2012,
Usman, 2008).
3.4.8. Recommendations
In light of the above findings and conclusions, following recommendations are made:
First, specific attention needs to be given to how quality education is promoted across the
country. Assessment of learning outcomes suggests that more than half of the children in school
cannot read or write. MICS data links low learning to households socioeconomic status: children
in poorer households tend to have lower learning outcomes than those in richer homes. The
MLA data also shows that despite diversity of interventions, education qualiy is declining. The
quality of public schools is rated poorly. Multivariate analysis of the determinants of early grade