The study examined the challenges hindering implementation of the universal basic educational (UBE) policy in Nigeria. The study is a descriptive survey research. The population of the study comprised all the two hundred and twenty one principals in Ebonyi state public junior secondary schools. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select 100 principals for the study. Instrument used for data collection is a researcher-structured questionnaire. The instrument was validated by three expects. Two from Educational Administration and Planning and one from Educational Measurement and Evaluation options Department of Educational Foundations and Science Education respectively in the Faculty of Education University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability of the instrument was determined using split-half test method and computed with Cronbach Alpha which yields a coefficient of 0.82. The data collected were analyzed using means scores and standard deviation. The findings of the study revealed that politics; inadequate funds, poor planning and bureaucratic red-tape syndrome constitute challenges to the implementation of UBE policy in Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended that successive government should consolidate on the existing policy plans for sustainability as well as strengthen the (PRS) units of both universal basic education board (UBEB) and ministry of education (MOE).
Education in Nigeria as well as world over has been adopted as instrument par excellence for economic growth and national development. That is why the national policy on education in Nigeria was emphatic that education is no longer a private enterprise but a huge government venture that has witnessed a progressive evolution of government complete and dynamic intervention, and active participation (FRN, 2004).
The national goals as articulated in the Nigeria’s national development plan of 1970s and enshrined in the National Policy on Education were to be achieved using education as the driving force. Since then, Nigeria
government has been making concerted efforts to actualize these objectives through many failed educational policies and programmes such as the universal primary education (UPE) scheme, early child care development and education (ECCDE), nomadic and almajiri education programmes. It is part of the efforts that the universal basic education (UBE) programme was launched in 1999. It is regrettable that for over 50 years of self-rule in Nigeria, she is still battling to improve her education system in spite of several technical and financial assistances from international organizations like the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Children’s Education Funds (UNICEF) and World Bank.
All this while, there is no doubt that Nigeria formulate very sound policies in education similar to what is obtainable in advanced countries like Britain and United States of America but one will be tempted to ask why her education system is still at a very low level going by the 2013 report of National Assessment of Learning Achievement in Basic Education conducted by Universal Basic Education Commission of general poor pupils and students performance in all subjects which were attributed to short in supply of instructional materials, poor school environment among others.
This has made many education observers and practitioners to believe that the major problem facing education in Nigeria is not the absence of informed, rational and thoughtful educational policy, but the lack of political will on the part of those charged with the responsibility of supervising the implemention of these policies (Akindutire et al., 2011). What is on the lips of many well-meaning Nigerians is why are education policies in Nigeria not well implemented before formulating and or introducing a new one.
The concept of policy
Policy is an official statement of government intentions on different sectors of government. It is the activities involved in getting and using power in public life and being able to influence decision that affects a country or a society (Asamonye et al., 2015).
This implies that policies take long processes to be formulated, decided upon, adopted, implemented, violated, evaluated, revised and rescinded. For instance, the national policy on education which provides the principles, guideline, programmes, persons, contents, methods, supervision and evaluation of in-put/output process to achieve educational goals in Nigeria did not spring up overnight. It came into being as a result of many conferences and high powered committees that brainstormed to put together what we know today as a National Policy on Education (NPE) which has been revised in 1981, 2004, 2008 and 2013. It is in this regard that Okunamiri (2010) defined educational policies as course of action recommended and adopted by the leaders (government agents, political power? as expedient or essential to the issues and problems of education which may take the form of ordinance, code, edict, decree or law dependent on the type of government in place.
In the same vein, Osokoya (2011) stated that educational policy is the statement of intentions of the government and the envisaged means of achieving those aspects of its national objectives that have to rely on the use of education as a tool. The concept of educational policy therefore denotes the determination of major educational objectives, the selection of methods of achieving and the continuous adaptation of existing programmes to the problems that face a government.
Education policy in the context of this study can therefore be described as the collection of laws and rules that govern the operation of an education system. It encapsulates a government’s expressed intensions and official enactments, as well as its consistent patterns of activity or inactivity. Bolaji et al. (2015) opine that education policy intends to bring to life the perspectives, realities and tools for negotiating the political order of education in order to effect the desired improvement in the education system in line with the changing society. It is the ambiance of politics that develops policies which means that politics shape the policies in education. Every government desires to make basic education accessible to all citizens that is why the UBE programme was introduced in Nigeria.
Concept of Universal Basic Education (UBE) in Nigeria
The UBE programme is an education policy formulated to represent Nigeria government strategy for achieving Education for All (EFA) accord. Okoro (2010) described UBE programme as an expression of the strong desire of the government to eliminate illiteracy by raising the level of awareness and general education opportunities of the entire citizenry in Nigeria. The objectives of UBE as contained in the UBE Act 2004 are to:
(1) Develop in the entire citizenry a strong consciousness for education and a strong commitment to its vigorous promotion;
(2) Provide free, universal basic education for every Nigerian child of school going age;
(3) Reduce drastically the incidence of drop-out from the formal school system (through improved relevance, quality and efficiency);
(4) Cater for the learning needs of young persons, who for one reason or another, have had to interrupt their schooling, through appropriate forms of complementary approaches to the provision and promotion of basic education;
(5) Ensure the acquisition of appropriate level of literacy, numeracy, manipulative, communicative and life skills as well as the ethical, moral and civic values needed for laying solid foundation for life-long learning.
The aforementioned Act also provided the legal framework for the implementation of the UBE programme but despite all these arrangements, the programme is yet to be fully implemented after nineteen years of its launching in 1999. The question in everybody’s mouth is what was actually wrong? Although education is generally supposed to be separated from politics but it is impossible to separate politics from education because it is the political agenda of the government in power as presented to the State and National Assembles that shapes the policies government adopt to achieve educational objectives of state and federal governments.
Policies are made by people’s representatives in the government for the career civil servants to implement under their supervision. It is this background that politics has been conceived as a struggle for who gets what?. It is because politics has to do with lobbying processes for resources control and or allocation in any given time and place. Adie et al. (2015) saw politics of education as a complex inter-relationship among interest groups across the education structure who wants to serve particular goals or needs to suit the interest of the government in place. The story is the same at all levels of education, and junior secondary school is not an exception.
Junior secondary schools are institutions controlled and managed by the government through the universal basic education board (UBEB) to provide education to those who have completed primary education, and prepare them for higher education and or useful living. Although education is in the concurrent list in the constitution of the Federal Republic Nigeria, all public junior secondary schools except unity schools are within the purview of the state government that notwithstanding, it is the National policy on Education that gives direction to all levels of education.
Every public junior secondary school is headed by a principal usually referred to as school administrator because he/she is charged with the responsibility to ensure the realization of the educational objectives at that level. People are supposed to be appointed by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to the position of a principal based on experience and sometimes through quota system. This basically accounts for the differences in the managerial ability of the principal vis-à-vis the school performance. It is the responsibility of the state government through the appropriate Agencies, Boards and Ministry of Education to initiate policies and programmes that will enable her achieve the objectives of UBE in junior secondary education in their respective states. This accounts for the differences that are observed in the area across states and even within a state.
Overview of policy implementation in Nigeria
It is understandable that every government that comes to power has its own political agenda which shapes social programmes, governance structure and public institutions. These are accompanied with changes invariably seen as policy change which sometimes are changes made in order to alter the political balance of power or even exercise political coercion to manoeuvre opponent.
It is worthy to note every level of education in Nigeria has its own fair share of these political intrigues; that is why Imam (2001) noted that the effect of change in government (which brings about changes in policy) on the goals of education and mobilization of resources is a proof to ineffective implementation of various programmes canvassed for by the National policy on Education, and has relegated hopes and optimism to the back-state. The gap that often exists between policy formulation and implementation calls for inquiry to identify factors that constrain the effective implementation of educational polices especially at the junior secondary school level.
Okoroma (2001) in his study on the evaluation of the 3-3 aspect of the National policy on education observed that the following factors have hindered effective implementation of the policy. They are:
(1) Inadequate qualified staff
(2) Inadequate physical facilities/equipment
(3) Insufficient funds, and
(4) Non-availability of guidance and counseling services corroborating these findings
The Department for International Development (DFID) report according to Yakwan and Alagi (2015) noted that secondary schools in Nigeria operate in a very challenging environment, with two few qualified teachers, poor infrastructure and unpredictable state of funding all contributing to poor learning outcomes for students in secondary education.
Similarly, Yakwan and Alagi (2015) identified poor communication process, capability problem and dispositional conflicts as general explanations for unsuccessful implementation of educational policies and programmes. It is on this back-drop that Yakwan and Alagi (2015) averred that politics of the nation Nigeria over the period of democratic rule has hindered a holistic policy implementation model for the collective interest of Nigerians, and observed that major education stakeholders are not involved in the formulation of education policies but are left to implement the polices without the needed resources. They also noted that saddling politicians who have little or no knowledge in educational management with the responsibility of education policy formulation and corruption at all levels have taken their toll on the challenges to the implementation of educational policies and programmes in Nigeria.
Lending voice on the challenges to effective planning and implementation of educational policies and programmes, Nwankwo cited in Ekechukwu (2016:10) maintained that planning and implementation of educational polices in Nigeria is faced with many challenges among which includes:
(1) The cart before the horse syndrome
(2) Dearth of reliable statistical data
(3) Population explosion
(4) Depressing economy
(5) Bureaucracy
(6) Inadequate finances
(7) Inadequate qualified manpower and political instability.
In the same vein, Okoroma (2006) identified planning with unreliable data, lack of political will, insufficient funds and corruption as the major hindrances to the implementation of educational policies in Nigeria. Yawe (2015) gave the following reasons for planning in education they are:
(1) To clearly identify and define the desired end results of educational operations
(2) To ensure that limited educational resources are rationally allocated among the various competing educational demands and programme
(3) To ensure that educational interests, needs and demands of various interest groups like students, staff parents and members of the school community are harmonized with those of the society
(4) To achieve the national objectives of education, and
(5) To avoid wastages by providing just the type and quantity of educational service needed in the society (p.13).
He noted that policy implementation in Nigeria is a problem due to different conflicting factors resulting from poor policy planning; although planning comes first before policy formulation but proceeds implementation. Unfortunately, educational policy plans and goal attainment have been irrevocable due to implementation constraints. It is against this backdrop that Okoroma (2006) maintained that the problem of policy implementation is traceable to the planning stage which comes immediately after policy formulation. She noted that good planning that can facilitate effective implementation ought to consider such factors as the planning environment, social, political, financial and statistical problems. Adzongo and Agbe in Yawe (2015) observed the following factors as constraints to educational policy implementation in Nigeria and they include:
(1) The nature of the economy
(2) The non-economic factors (culture and tradition, attitudes etc)
(3) Tiers of government
(4) Availability of resources
(5) Public pressure
(6) Ambiguity or lack of specificity in policy directives and frequent changes in policy as a result of change in government.
Furthermore, Louis et al. cited in Ekechukwu (2016) pointed out that extensive bureaucratization and foistering hierarchical reporting relationship characteristic of bureaucracy most of the time stifle timely dispensation of duties which invariably delay actions on government policies and programmes in education. Bureaucracy is a system of administration characterized by specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules and hierarchy of authority usually represented by civil service not elected representatives (Merriam, 2018).
In Nigeria today, the political influence in the education policy issues has negatively impacted on the civil service system that is regarded as a contemporary institution with the purpose of creating an efficient way of organizing public organizations. In numerous instances, many policies have been marred by poor implementation strategies emanating from bureaucratic procedures due to overbearing political influences.
The bureaucrats (civil servants) in the civil service sometimes out of frustration and in defense of their office, device a way of placing obstacles on the policies that are formulated by political officials especially for policies they have contrary views or those that are not of direct benefit to them.
Similarly, Bolaji (2014) contended that the relationships between the bodies of UBE policy implementation in Nigeria are not consistent with the realization of education outcome as it relate to the implementation of basic education policy because of the issue of control. He noted that there is no clear unambiguous and explicitly stated bureaucratic roles defining the agencies of implementation (SUBEBs and MOEs) in the states with regard to UBE implementation.
The Nigeria’s EFA Development index is less than 0.8 that is why Nigeria is ranked 132 out of 133 countries of the world on the level of implementation of basic education and this scenario has been attributed to government rhetoric without will power (Bolaji, 2014).
Generally, corruption and unethical behavior among public and civil service officials has been alluded as a serious impediment to implementation of education policies in Nigeria (Ezekwesili, 2013). Having reviewed the opinions of scholars on the implementation of educational policies in Nigeria especially the UBE, it is the desire of this study to critically look into the challenges to the implementation of UBE policy in Nigeria and its implications to educational planners.
Statement of the problem
With the introduction of the UBE policy in Nigeria since 1999 to ensure unfettered transition of pupils from primary to junior secondary school, the programme seem not to be fully implemented. Many children are still seen roaming on streets of major cities, towns and villages without being in school. Private primary and secondary schools still flourish despite the exorbitant fees they charge.
Poverty is still ravaging in many families which have resulted to incessant cases of child labour, abuse, abandon and or trafficking. World Bank (2008) UBE assessment report placed the Nigeria’s EFA development index at 0.8 which means that Nigeria ranked 132 out of 133 countries involved in the study on the level of implementation of basic education.
A cursory look at all these aberrations to the aims and objectives of the UBE programmes one will be left with no doubt that something is wrong somewhere. It is on the basis of these that the problem of the study is posed as a question thus: what are the challenges hindering the implementation of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) policy in junior secondary schools.
Research questions
The study is set to achieve its purpose by answering the following research questions:
(1) How does politics constitute challenge to implementation of UBE policy in Nigeria?
(2) How do funds affect implementation of UBE policy in Nigeria?
(3) How does planning affect implementation of UBE policy in Nigeria?
(4) How does bureaucracy affect implementation of UBE policy in Nigeria?
