Nigeria: Report: Part II: Analytic Section

The EFA 2000 Assessment: Country Reports
Nigeria

PART II: ANALYTIC SECTIONS

7. PROGRESS TOWARD GOALS AND TARGETS

Early Childhood Care and Development (ECD)

Pre-primary education is a prominent component of the national education system. It is a foundation training and is considered indispensable to future or life-long education. It is given in Day Care Centres and Nursery Schools to children aged 3 to under 6 years and is enriched by the informal, traditional up-bringing given to children.

Government is not directly involved in the establishment and day-to-day running of Day Care Centres and necessary schools but encourages private efforts to do so. It makes provision for teachers to specialise in early childhood education. In addition, Government:

Sets the minimum standards, regulates and controls the operation of pre-primary education;
Ensures that the medium of instruction is principally the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community;
Develops the orthography of many more Nigeria languages
Produces textbooks in Nigerian languages
Ensures that the main method of teaching at this level is activity or play method and that the curriculum of teacher education is oriented to achieve this.

In consonance with the Jomtien Declaration, World Summit for children, the Convention on the Rights of the child, ECCDE has become an important part of the basic education programme since learning begins at birth. This has provided supportive policy implications for different sectors such as health, social services, agriculture, nutrition among others. Furthermore, the Convention on the rights of the child led to the setting up of implementation committees that have harmonised national laws and polices. Consequently, certain States have assumed responsibility for setting standards with regards to day care facilities within their States. It is important to state that in the health sector, available reports indicate that the infant mortality rate dropped from 150/1,000 in 1960 to 851/1,000 as far back as in 1985. The chances for survival of young children has increased to 11 out of every 12 children ever born due to low cost health interventions during their infancy. On the other hand, a majority of surviving children are living in debilitating circumstances and under adverse socio-economic conditions that expose them to health hazards of mal/under-nutrition including arrested or delayed psycho-social cognitive and creative development.

The FGN/UNICEF Co-operation Agreement in Basic Education has for ECCD, the underlisted objectives for the period 1997 – 2001.

Increase accessibility of child care and pre-school education for the majority of pre-school children in Nigeria;
Strengthen the role of parents and communities for the development and education of young children at home;
Cater for the crucial developmental need of children in the pre-school phase;
Develop a system based on early child centres, to address the wide-needs of women at community level in preparing them for motherhood, improving their child-rearing skills and their understanding of children’s growth and development needs;
Promote, through the growth of alternative early childhood services, employment opportunities for young women, halting the drift to the city.

The output objectives of the project in 10 UNICEF – assisted States for 1991 – 1995 country programme of co-operation were the following:

Set up 920 low-cost community basis ECCDE centres;
Provide early stimulation through non-formal learning opportunities to 92,000 children aged between 3 and 5 years;
Support and promote health and nutrition services to 50,000 children aged under two years;
Train 5,000 child care provide and 700 trainers and supervisors in improved ECCDE techniques and practices;
Orient 2,000 personnel from existing day care centres.

During the 1997 – 2001 country programme of co-operation, emphasis is on early child care in all its ramifications and the main objectives are:

To improve the present care education facilities and, developmental opportunity and needs of children below 6 years of age in disadvantage circumstances living in rural and urban poor areas;
Support NGOs and CBOs to strength the role of parents and community for the development and education of parental education and other ECC initiatives;
Promote preparedness of children for school and school for children through ECC/primary school linkages, child to child programme curriculum review and plan of school related activities;
Demonstrate and apply through NGOs community based organisation (CBOs) and parents/care of cost, community/home based approaches to early childhood care and education which respond to the needs of women and children in rural and urban poor areas;
Reinforce the development of creativity and thinking in children;
Improve the process of transmission of social and cultural skills, their enhancing the child’s self image and creativity.

Pre-primary Institutions

In 1984, there were 414 government registered nursery schools in Nigeria. This figure rose gradually from 900 schools by 1986 to over 12,000 by 1996. The expansion of pre-schools is expected to be even greater with the projected population of 12.71 million pre-school children in the nation.

Gross Enrolment in ECCDE

Table 1 showing Short, Medium and Long Term Targets for Pre-Primary Education

Year	Projected Population of Under 6 years Old	Expected Enrolment	Estimated No. to Enrol.	Estimated No. of Low-Cost Community Pre-Primary Schools to be Established with average of 250 Pupils in Each School.
1995	19.49	9.02	1.07m	4.280
S 1996	20.05	10.22	1.67m	6.680
1997	20.01	12.26	2.31	9.240
1998	21.80	14.70	2.98m	11.920
M1999	22.41	17.66	3.68m	14.20
2000	23.05	21.1	4.46	17.840

Table 1 above shows data from the UNICEF/EPIU project derived from the 1991 National Census and projected into the year 2000 (FME, 1993). It is clear from this table that there are about 22.7 million children in this sub-sector, only about 4.7% 4.7% or 11 million children enrolled at any day care/nursery school or creche. The overall objective is to improve the quality of pre-primary education and to increase access to it from the present level of 4.7% in 1992 to 25% by the year 2000. This means an annual growth rate of 3.6% or 1 million as shown in Table 2 (which by 1997 has almost been achieved).

Table 2. Projected Enrolment for Pre-Primary Education 1992 – 2000

Year	Pop. Of Children Under 6 Years (M)	Expected % Enrolment	Estimated Number Enrolled (M)	Estimated No. of Nursery Schools or Creches with an average of 250 Children in Each.
1992	22.7	4.71	1.1	4,400
1993	23.3	7.21	1.7	6,800
1994	23.9	9.71	2.3	9,200
1995	24.5	12.21	3.0	12,000
1996	25.1	14.71	3.7	14,800
1997	25.7	17.21	4.4	17,600
1998	26.4	19.71	5.2	20,800
1999	27.0	22.21	6.0	24,000
2000	27.7	24.71	6.8	27,200

The trend in enrolment had been more females than males in the past. The population distribution of children below six years from 1999 and estimated projection for year 2004 are shown in table 3.

The population of children below 6 years in Nigeria in 1999 is recorded as 22,395,119. The projected population of children for the year 2004 is estimated at 25,748,536. The distribution of children below 6 years by gender is as shown in Table 3 below.

Table 3: Distribution of children (below 6 years) by gender

Year	Male	Female	Total
1999	116,670,051 (49.86%)	11,228,068 (50.14%	22,395,119
Projected 2004	12,909,345 (50.14%)	12,839,191 (49.86%)	25,748,536

The population of female children recorded a higher percentage (50.14%) than that of the male children (49.86%). The estimated population of males (50.14%) is however higher than that of females (49.86%) when projected to year 2004.

The population of female children recorded a higher percentage (50.14%) than that of male children (49.86%). The estimated population of males (50.14%) is however higher than that of females (49.86%) when projected to year 2004.

Gender

Table 4: Enrolment into Day care centres (N-18,836) by Gender and Age

	Under 6 months	7-12 months	13-24 months	25-36 months
Male	1228	1519	2241	3269
Female	1329	1422	2149	5661
Total	2581	294	4390	8924
Per cent	13.7	15.16	23.31	47.38

At the nursery classes the emerging pattern in enrolment is a gradual decrease from Nursery I to Nursery III with a marginal difference in favour of males. This is shown in Table 5 and fig. 1) The number of children in Nursery II is less than Nursery III since a good number do not stay to read Nursery III but proceed to Primary I from Nursery II. Most children in Nursery III are either biding time to attain the age of primary education, or deemed intellectually immature by teachers and parents for primary I in private school.

Table 5.1:Enrolment by Class by Gender in the sampled Pre-Primary Schools

	Nursery I	Nursery II	Nursery III	TOTAL
Male	19829 (51.99 per cent)	15202 (51.54 per cent)	2241 (51.15 per cent)	3269 (51.19)
Female	1329 (48.13)	1422 (48.70)	2149 (48.84)	5661 (48.41)
Total	2581	2941	4390	8924
Percent	13.70	15.16	23.13	47.38

Enrolment figures show that more males (51%) are enrolled when compared to females (48%).

Establishment of ECCDE facilities: Since the beginning of the programme in 1991, and including 1996 activities, a total of 2,045 new facilities were established in the 12 states of the project, catering for a total of 174,748 children. The aim is to hand over these newly founded nursery schools and day care centres to communities, CBOs and NGOs to manage.

In its 1996 Report, UNICEF notes that 48 ECC facilities have been taken over by NGOs/CBOs, Communities and Church organizations. Furthermore, many private day-care centres and nursery schools sprang up as part of community participation in ECCDE.

Health and Nutrition services were delivered to at least 7000 of these children.
Training of personnel: 400 counterparts, 578 trainers and supervisors, 6038 care givers, 30 NGO officials, 48 managers and 165 para-teachers/instructors were all given training from 1991-1996.

(iii) Development of training materials. The project developed the following:

Early Child Care Curriculum Guidelines
A book on Child Health and Nutrition in Nigeria
Child Development: A Module for Training Early Childhood Education Teachers and Care-givers. (NERDC produced a simplified vision)

(iv) Development of Pre-school Readers, including translation and transcriptions of folklore, traditional songs, games etc.

(v) Toy Making: Apart from the development of a book on toy making, "Learn As You Play", instruction was given to parents elders and youth in the making of simple educational toys.

Widespread Advocacy and Mobilization was undertaken at grassroot to enlighten the community and to boost demand for pre-primary education.

All these activities are designed to raise the standard and improve the quality of pre-school education.

Although there are no data for determining the percentage of primary grade I pupils who attended some form of organized early childhood development programme, it is common knowledge that the percentage of this category of pupils is very low, the situation being worse in the rural areas where there are hardly any Day Care Centres and Nuseries.

Lessons Learnt:

In Nigeria, Pre-primary/Early Childhood care Education (PPECCE) is a vast field that is continually expending. Although there is a National Guideline for the establishment, organization and management of PPECCE, yet its application and implication are varied and various. The official curriculum for this level of education is not widely circulated and many of the teachers to implement it are yet to be adequately trained in its use. The teaching/learning materials are few and expensive while the educational materials used are not standardised.

In addition the level of Monitoring and Evaluation is low. On the positive side, due importance of the holistic development of a child is amply demonstrated at this level of education since an inter sectoral approach is adopted.

The above situation poses many challenges to the ECD sector. These include:

Review of the ECDE curriculum and the Guidelines for the Establishment, Organisation,
The need to promulgate a national policy on Pre-primary/Early Childhood Care and Development Education;
Evolution and support of a mechanism for the production, development and distribution of Teaching/Learning materials; and
Translation of relevant and appropriate education materials into major indigenous languages.

BASIC EDUCATION

As earlier indicated, for Nigeria, Basic Education includes six year primary education and the first three years of secondary education as well as basic and functional literacy for our school children, youths and adults.

7.2.1 PRIMARY EDUCATION

DEFINITION AND OBJECTIVES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION

In Nigeria, primary education is the education given in institutions for children aged 6 – 11 years. According to the National Policy on Education the goals and objectives of primary education are to :

inculcate permanent literacy and numeracy, and ability to communicate effectively;
lay a sound basis for scientific and reflective thinking;
give citizenship education as a basis for effective participation in and contribution to the life of the society;
mould the character and develop sound attitude and morals in the child;
develop in the child the ability to adapt to his changing environment;
give the child opportunities for developing manipulative skills that will enable him to function effectively in the society within the limits of his capacity;
provide the child with basis tools for further educational advancement, including preparation for traders and crafts of the locality.

In Nigeria, primary education remains the bedrock upon which the formal education system is built. Although the constitutional responsibility of primary education rests with the local government, the other two tiers of government, namely the state and the federal governments have been variously involved in the funding and management of primary education in Nigeria. At the moment, the management of primary education remains a contemporary national issue as controversy has ensued since the federal government announced that it is handing over the management of primary education to the local governments, with a view to contributing its funding quota through the State governments.