Key challenges
Why is ESSPIN so important?
Years of neglect have left Nigeria with poor quality public education. Many schools fail to provide even basic opportunities for learning. School buildings and facilities are inadequate. Teaching standards are low. Teachers receive inadequate training and have little motivation to improve. Management of education is weak and often ineffective, inefficient and top heavy. There is a desire for reform, but policies and plans are not implemented effectively. Financial management is opaque and capital and operating funds do not reach schools as intended.
Reforms that ESSPIN is supporting are vitally important because the current dire state of education means that children fail to acquire even the fundamental skills and knowledge that they need to lead productive lives as individuals and citizens.
An integrated approach
Raising standards in Nigerian schools is an enormous task. Quality education is an outcome of all the interactions that make the education system work well. ESSPIN’s approach is to focus support on the key elements that work together to deliver quality education – an integrated approach – rather than tackle problems in isolation.
For schools to be transformed into dynamic learning environments many things need to happen simultaneously. There need to be changes in the educational system as a whole, such as improving educational management, teaching skills, school infrastructure and learning materials. There also need to be changes outside schools, for example in education funding and governance structures and systems, and in the social and cultural attitudes of parents and communities.
Lasting transformation comes from changing behaviour – changing how people do things – but getting people to change how they do things is not simple. ESSPIN helps Governments to put in place planning, financing and operational systems that will make it easier for people to deliver quality education.
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