HOW RECESSION IS AFFECTING EDUCATION IN NIGERIA AND SOLUTIONS

While many families do their best to carry on as if nothing is wrong with the world, recessions can have a profound effect on their day-to-day lives and their children education is not left alone.

A developed country like United States of America, it is an old story. America has had 47 economic recessions in their history. The most recent one occurred 2007 – 2009 which they call Great Recession.

In United Kingdom and all other EU member states have had major and minor recession for more than 20 times.

In Nigeria, Education is feeling this sharply. Whether students, teachers, lecturers, researcher, library worker, admin clerk, canteen worker, or proprietors, they all have their share in recession.

The brief analysis of this topic “HOW RECESSION IS AFFECTING EDUCATION IN NIGERIA AND SOLUTIONS” includes the views of some students and what it means for education.

Education is usually one of the last budget areas to be cut, but most schools today are suffering declines in tuition fee payment by parents and guardians.

At the same time, many are also facing dramatic increases in costs ranging from utilities. With decreasing revenues and rising costs, schools are forced to make tough decisions if they are to balance their budgets and still meet the needs of their students and staff.

Some schools are finding ways to grapple with rising costs and limit the impact on students—for the time being. But what will be the long-term impact of this economic crisis on our next generation of students?

A quick look at a painful subject

The recession is on in Nigeria and federal government is promising that it will technically end in 2017, school budgets are not expected to regain their pre-recession 2017 funding levels until late in the 2018 and above, for a number of reasons.

As we write in this December 2016, many schools have been able to cut their expenditures with minimal impact on students by deferring maintenance and construction projects, laying off central office staff, and eliminating nonessential travel. While some schools throw Christmas party to ease out the pressures and make some money from students who were able to make their contributions.

Some schools have had to make cuts that affect students more directly. These cuts include:

• Laying off teachers, which in turn increases class size
• Cutting extracurricular activities
• Cutting subjects not required for graduation
• Eliminating field trips
• Cutting instructional programs
• Cutting professional development for teachers and staff.

Some schools have managed to trim personnel costs while minimizing teacher layoffs by instituting furlough days, freezing salaries, and reducing other benefits. But the financial handwriting is still on the wall: In upcoming years, more cuts will be necessary.

School boards that evaluate possible cuts on the basis of research and data will be more likely to minimize the impact on students, at least in the short term. As this paper will show, this will only get them so far before their ability to provide a sound public education to all students is seriously threatened.

Just how bad is it now?

Nearly all private schools in Nigeria funding come from parents and guardians direct funding/payment. Many parents are withdrawing their children from private to public schools. Lagos state in south west Nigeria have had a high record of this. The little funding from state and federal governments have seriously declined if not completely cut off.

In all these, schools income is declining but requirements are not. And schools still have to comply with policies like where teacher’s children/students pay 50% of their tuitions, discount on parents with two or more children and scholarships given to some students.

The old parents that have been good in meeting their financial obligations in the past years and have not being able to do so in this recession is not left out in the financial burden some schools are facing.   Merits aside, meeting these mandates takes time and money, giving schools limited flexibility in making needed cuts in other parts of their already lean budgets.

Some states that sees education as an investment in their economic future, so it is usually the last area to be cut. But today, many states have slashed their own budgets to the bone in public schools. Finally, rising costs, coupled with no substantial increase in funds, will challenge schools as never before.

What Some Schools are doing in this phase.

Belt-tightening measures included reducing central office administrative staff, eliminating nonessential travel, deferring maintenance, reducing consumable supplies, and cutting down training costs.

But such cuts have their limits. With growing budget gaps, schools were forced to look at areas that have a more direct impact on student achievement. This includes:

• Increasing class size. Some school managers have increased their class sizes.
• Cutting extracurricular activities.
• Cutting transportation. Some said they would reduce their transportation programs if thing persist because maintenance cost has increased and they can’t increase transport fee as it stance.
• Considering eliminating holiday’s classes.

The litany of other cuts is long: instructional improvement programs, after-school programs, and textbook purchases, elective courses not required for graduation, technology purchases, instructional materials, field trips, and collaborative planning time within the school day. In addition, many schools also modified procurement contracts with their vendors to save costs in such areas as food services, textbook and technology purchases.

Despite these cost-saving measures, most schools still had to eliminate jobs to balance their budgets for the current school year.

How many school jobs are being cut, and which ones?

With 60 to 80 percent of school funds dedicated to personnel (Roza 2007), budget cuts mean it’s inevitable that jobs will be lost. Nearly all schools (90 percent) said they are cutting positions.

Many schools are still expected to lay off teachers in core subject areas such as English, math, science, and social studies. And not only are fewer teachers teaching more students, but they are doing it with less help. More than half of schools will be expect to lay off teacher aides in 2017.

Other school personnel are also in danger of losing their jobs. Many schools also are considering laying off arts, music, or physical education teachers. More than four in ten are considering laying off maintenance, transportation workers, central office staff and administrators to the list.

This projection is in line with Ellerson report on United States of America last recession 2008 – 2010 (Ellerson 2010). For each of these groups of workers, the percent of schools considering layoffs may be significantly higher in 2017 than it was in 2016 in Nigerian case.

Read: Nursery, Primary, Secondary Schools Management Software in Nigeria with Free Demo

What can we expect in school budgets in the future?

On the equation, the outlook is looking much brighter. The last quarter indexes show that the rate of inflation is increasing at a decreasing rate. Job losses are at a decreasing rate. Couple with some federal government policies and 2017 budget.

Because in Nigeria, more than 90% of schools revenue comes directly from parents and guardians’ payment, the schools revenue changing to positive may take some time to see.

This is as a result of the followings:

• Parents and guardians Income are not likely to grow for a while due to high unemployment.
• The projected large government budget shortfalls will likely mean cuts in aid and transfers to local governments.
• Also, because Nigeria does not have credit markets, this has made it difficult for parents to maintain debt-funded projects and have resulted in higher debt costs.

What can school boards do?

Nothing makes cutting budgets easy, especially when there’s little, if any, fat left to cut. The dilemma, then, is to find substantial cuts that will balance the school budget while still meeting students’ needs. As school boards monitor this year’s budget and plan for next year’s, research can point the way toward which cuts will have the least negative impact.

Layoffs and class size. Faced with the difficult decision of teacher layoffs and larger class sizes, a school board should ask:

• What will the impact of larger classes be on students?
• Is the impact the same in all grades?
• Is the impact the same on all types of students?
• How many students should be in a classroom?
• Does your state have a law about class size?

Research shows that smaller classes do have a positive impact on student achievement—especially in the lower grades with low-income students. Before making decisions that may increase class sizes, schools should examine their student demographic and achievement data to pinpoint which classes need to remain small and which may be able to absorb more students without undermining achievement. Professional development that helps teachers be more effective in larger classes can minimize the impact of these changes.

Class size research also shows that smaller classes, by themselves, will not provide much impact without effective teachers. Therefore, a school board should also be asking:

• Do all students have equal access to effective teachers?
• How will layoffs affect that access?
• How do we currently determine teacher effectiveness?

Every school has distinct problems and priorities, of course, and what works in one may not work in another. Before making layoff decisions, schools can look to this research to identify effective teachers and then examine school data to see what effect layoffs will have.

Looking to the future (Low income Vs continue rising costs)

In the current loss of jobs, parents and guardians income remain low, and costs of running schools continue to rise. Full tuition fee payment by parents and guardians may not be expected to return to pre-recession levels until later in 2018 and 2019.

2019 election and other political activities in Nigerian may stare up some economic activities that may inject cash into the system.

What will be the long-term impact of this unprecedented budget crunch? Just think: Today’s primary school children may graduate into secondary school before their schools can afford to reinvest in quality teachers, small classes, and proven educational programs. Unprepared for top colleges or a demanding workforce, many of these young people will earn low wages; at worst, some will become a drag on society. That’s a tragedy for individual children and a serious long-term problem for the nation.

None of these cuts are good for the nation’s children now, and none will be good for the nation as a whole in the years to come.

Clearly, the current system of school funding isn’t working. For schools to succeed in the long run, school boards, policymakers, and the public need to reexamine how education will be funded in Nigeria.

More especially, primary and secondary school education funding.
We need a new system that will stop the bleeding permanently by providing reliable and sustainable funding for education in Nigeria. What that new funding system looks like should be the subject of a serious national conversation—and the subject of in-depth research.

Schools need to communicate how severe the long-term outlook is and work to ensure that students who are just starting school now will be able to cover the lapses created in the budget cut.

Chris David
Meredox Limited