Public Finance for Basic Education in Nigeria.

Highlights

Nigeria has a long-standing commitment to universal basic education. The Federal Government of Nigeria introduced the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme in 1999 as an education reform aimed at providing greater access to quality basic education in Nigeria. The National Policy on Education serves as the foundational framework for education in Nigeria, and the UBE Act of 2004 guarantees the right of every child to compulsory, free basic education from primary to junior secondary levels. 

Despite the guarantee, 10.2 million children of primary school age and 8.1 million children of junior secondary school age were out of school in 2018 (UBEC, 2019). Among those children enrolled in school, the levels of learning are low. For instance, 49 per cent of learners in Primary 3, 67 per cent in Primary 5 and 86 per cent in Junior Secondary 2 did not reach the minimum proficiency in mathematics in 2022 (UBEC & UNICEF, 2025). In 2021, about 30 per cent of learners who successfully reached Junior Secondary 3 – the last grade of compulsory education – did not have foundational reading skills, which are expected to be acquired in Primary 2 and 3 (NBS & UNICEF, 2022). 

Low access to school education and poor learning outcomes are the results of chronic underfunding of Nigeria’s education sector over the past decade. The government’s education expenditure as a share of total government spending has been on a downward trend, declining from 9.3 per cent in 2015 to 3.6 per cent in 2023 despite the international benchmark of 15–20 per cent (UIS, 2026). Recognizing the scarcity of public funding, Nigeria has committed to spend 4 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education by 2025 and maintain this through 2030.