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….10m children missing early education, warns of deepening learning crisis
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
About 70 per cent of Nigerian children aged 10 cannot read and understand a simple text, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has disclosed, raising fresh concerns over the country’s worsening learning crisis.
The commission linked the poor learning outcomes partly to inadequate early childhood care, development and education (ECCDE), disclosing that about 10 million young children are currently not captured in any form of early childhood education.
Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Aisha Garba, disclosed this in Abuja at a three-day capacity-building workshop for state actors on the utilisation of the ECCDE Minimum Standards, Implementation Guidelines and UNICEF Parental and Community Engagement documents.
Garba, represented by UBEC Deputy Executive Secretary (Technical), Rasaq Olajuwon Akinyemi, said only 35.6 per cent of Nigerian children aged 36 to 59 months currently attend any form of early childhood education.
She said the problem begins even before children reach primary school, noting that analysis of the 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey showed that about 46 per cent of children aged 24 to 59 months were developmentally off track.
“Only 35.6 per cent of Nigerian children aged 36 to 59 months attend any form of early childhood education. That leaves roughly 10 million of our youngest children outside ECCDE altogether,” she said.
According to her, the consequences of the weak foundation become increasingly evident as children progress through the education system.
She said only about 2.4 million of the 5.9 million children who enter primary school each year remain in the education system by the end of junior secondary school.
The UBEC boss therefore called for early childhood development to be treated as an integrated national priority involving not only the education sector but also health, nutrition, water and sanitation, social welfare and other relevant sectors.
“There is no cheaper place in the education system to buy results,” Garba said, citing Nobel Laureate James Heckman’s estimate of about 13 per cent annual return per child on high-quality birth-to-five programmes.
She directed states to incorporate ECCDE interventions into their State Matching Grant Action Plans, warning that programmes not included in the plans would not receive funding, procurement or monitoring attention. “I must be blunt: what is not in the Action Plan will not be funded, will not be procured and will not be monitored,” she said.
Garba disclosed that the deadline for states to submit their ECCDE Action Plans for the next intervention year had been extended from September 30 to October 5, 2026.
She warned that plans submitted after the new deadline would not be considered for the intervention year.
Earlier, UBEC Acting Director, Department of Special Programmes and Early Childhood, Dr Chijioke Onwuzurike, said Nigeria had more than 45 early childhood development delivery channels spread across health, nutrition, education, agriculture and social protection.
She, however, said the multiplicity of channels had created fragmentation, duplication and inconsistent services.
Onwuzurike said states were expected, within the next 18 months, to map and streamline their existing platforms, establish functional multi-sectoral coordination mechanisms and strengthen frontline workers’ capacity for screening and follow-up.
“School readiness is not something that begins at the primary school gate; by the time a child reaches that gate, it is largely decided,” she said.
Also speaking, UNICEF Nigeria Education Specialist, Yetunde Oluwatosin, said early childhood development was critical to addressing Nigeria’s out-of-school challenge.
She likened early childhood development to laying the foundation of a building, stressing that getting the foundation right would help children enter school at the appropriate age, remain in school and progress through the education system.
