Public Education in Nigeria

There is a worrisome situation of gross underfunding of public education in Nigeria. This neglect permeate from elementary to tertiary education. Government policies that are put in place to ensure that adequate funds are available for financing the sector are inadequate or overtaken by event

The UNESCO prescription for allocation of funds have never been met by any strata of government( I stand to be corrected) since the recommendation was put in place

My major worry is out of deep reflection on what the government of Nigeria hope to achieve with continued neglect of the educational sector, the lip services over the years and the prospect of the country in terms of Human capital

Political actors need to study other third world countries that has thrived to become relatively developed and see the impact of priotizing education and its attending effects on national development

The population of out of school children is estimated to be around 18.1 million according to UNESCO (2025), a figure almost equal to the population of Netherlands with a GDP of about $1. 162trillion ast at 2025 according to Wikipedia

This human capital which could have been harnessed is left to rot. Little wonder our nation is gradually becoming an ungovernable space.

I conclude with the law of conservation of mass as established by Lavoisier, "matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but transformed from one form to another ", if we continue to abandon public education, human capital will certainly be transformed into undesirable status that will continue to derail our developmental path (if any)

We have the choice of acting now or suffer the consequences now and in the future