The Poor Standard of Education in Nigerian Public Schools

Nigeria is a country with a large amount of mineral resources. It is also one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Nonetheless, visiting rural and urban public schools is leaving a lot of problems. People will think about whether these are real schools or abandoned historical sites. The degree of infrastructure damage is very shocking and the quality of learning is not good.

Many people insist that bringing children to a cheaper school. Many Nigerians must work hard in low quality basic education at public schools and better to work on better commodities of higher education at private schools. Public schools in Nigeria are generally poorly managed and managed, such as fund shortage, outdated infrastructure, poor human resources and poor quality, and instability of the school schedule due to ongoing strikes. It is also an issue that the housing capacity is insufficient. In Lagos, only 991 out of 11,226 elementary schools in the province are public schools, but 43% of primary school enrollment rates are in public schools (about 2 million children). By contrast, the state has 10,235 private elementary schools and 4 million children attend.

Public schools lack funds. Currently, only elementary schools receive subsidies from the government, accounting for 50% of the tuition fee. Although the enrollment rate may be high, the quality of primary education is lower than the standard required, especially in poor areas. In addition, most students are unable to attend junior high school or university due to poverty, so especially in rural areas and mountainous areas, the dropout rate after 5th grade is also high. Participatory poverty assessment (PPA) found that for many poor families, child labor is considered more valuable than school. Without an official school, academic performance may decline. In the case of poor families, the opportunity cost of bringing children to school is considered high and the long-term benefits of education can not exceed short-term economic losses.