Report: Nigeria’s Education Crisis Now About System Capacity, Not School Enrolment

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

Nigeria’s education challenge has shifted from getting children into school to building an education system capable of delivering quality learning, according to a new policy report by the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership.

The report, Nigeria’s Education Capacity Crisis: Closing the Gap Between Enrolment Growth and System Capacity, authored by Professor Temitayo Shenkoya and Anita Olatunde, argued that while the country has made remarkable progress in expanding access to education, inadequate investment in classrooms, teachers, infrastructure and governance has left the system overwhelmed and unable to translate rising enrolment into improved learning outcomes.

The publication, released on Wednesday in Abuja, described the situation as a structural capacity crisis rather than a temporary funding challenge, warning that without far-reaching institutional reforms, Nigeria risks undermining its human capital development and long-term economic competitiveness.

According to the report, 40.1 million pupils and students were enrolled in Nigeria’s public basic and secondary education system during the 2024/2025 academic session across 107,042 public schools.

However, the rapid increase in enrolment has far outpaced investments needed to sustain quality education.

The report revealed that an average classroom accommodates about 60 students, while roughly 66 students share a single toilet, highlighting severe overcrowding and poor sanitation in many public schools.

It also noted that Nigeria devoted only 0.3 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to public education in 2025, a figure significantly lower than allocations recorded in several comparable African countries.

The authors argued that the country’s education system is constrained less by enrollment than by weak governance structures, fragmented planning, inadequate teacher deployment, poor instructional quality, weak institutional coordination and limited use of education data for policy decisions.

“Nigeria’s education challenge is no longer defined solely by access; it is increasingly one of system capacity,” the report stated.

Rather than focusing exclusively on expanding school access, the report urged governments at all levels to prioritise strengthening institutional capacity, improving accountability mechanisms and adopting evidence-based planning to enhance learning outcomes.

Central to its recommendations is the development and effective deployment of the Digital Nigeria Education Management Information System (DNEMIS), which it said should serve as the backbone for planning, monitoring and evaluating education performance nationwide.

Among other recommendations, the report called for the establishment of integrated State Education Management Information Systems linked to the national platform, sustained multi-year investments in classrooms, teachers and digital infrastructure, evidence-based teacher deployment, improved instructional quality and stronger school leadership.

It also advocated annual infrastructure and learning-performance scorecards to monitor progress, targeted interventions for vulnerable learners and improved coordination among the Federal Ministry of Education, state governments, State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), Teaching Service Commissions (TESCOMs) and Local Government Education Authorities.

The report stressed that future education spending should be guided by verified data and measurable learning outcomes rather than enrolment figures alone.

Drawing lessons from Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, the authors argued that countries achieving better educational outcomes have done so by building institutions capable of continuous planning, performance monitoring and accountability.

According to the report, the true measure of success should no longer be the number of children enrolled in school or classrooms constructed, but the ability of governments to use reliable evidence to improve teaching quality, strengthen school leadership and ensure meaningful learning for every child.

The publication concluded that addressing Nigeria’s education capacity deficit is not only an education sector priority but also a national development imperative with direct implications for economic growth, workforce productivity and global competitiveness.