Nigeria’s Schools Don’t Need a New Policy — They Need Money

Someone I know spent thirty-two years teaching Integrated Science in a public secondary school in Abeokuta. She retired in 2018. The laboratory had no running water throughout her career.

Textbooks were shared three to a desk. And the roof leaked so badly that whenever it rained, lessons simply stopped.

Not moved. Stopped.

The class would sit in the dark, waiting for the water to subside, until the bell rang and they went home having learned nothing.When she visited the school last year, nothing had changed.

Not the roof.

Not the laboratory.

Not the textbooks.

The only thing that had changed was the curriculum, which had been reviewed twice since her retirement.This is the story of Nigerian education. Not a story of structure.

A story of neglect dressed up as reform.

The Proposal

In June 2026, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, announced plans to scrap the 6-3-3-4 system, introduced in 1982 as part of the National Policy on Education, and replace it with a 12-year uninterrupted basic education model.

The proposal removes the external examination requirement between junior and senior secondary school, merging JSS and SSS into a single six-year block.

The minister’s rationale is compelling on the surface. Out of about 24 million children enrolled in primary schools, only about four million complete senior secondary school.

“We have 20 million dropouts from primary school to junior secondary school. Where are those students?” he asked.

It is a devastating statistic.

But the minister has misdiagnosed the disease.

The Farmer Who Changes His Field Every Season

Imagine a farmer who changes the shape of his field every planting season, first in rows, then in circles, then in squares.

But he never buys fertiliser. Never invests in irrigation. Never hires labourers. Never learns about soil quality or pest control.

He simply rearranges the field and prays for rain.

When harvest comes and his barn is empty, he blames the shape of the field.

This is what Nigeria has done with education.

The 6-3-3-4 system was never the problem.

It was the farmer’s field.

The problem was always the fertiliser, funding, teacher quality, infrastructure, political will, that was never provided.

When 6-3-3-4 was introduced, it was designed to prepare young Nigerians for the future through vocational and technical education.

Students who completed JSS3 would either pursue academic work or learn a trade.

That vision was never realised. Laboratories were never built. Teachers were never trained. Funding was never provided.

In its place, Nigeria produced millions of graduates who could neither read properly nor practise a trade.

The Real Crisis

By the Minister’s own admission, about three out of four children cannot read and understand an age-appropriate text by age 10.

The World Bank’s 2024 assessment found that 72.6 per cent of Nigerian children aged 7–14 cannot read and understand a simple text.

Was it 6-3-3-4 that caused this? No.

Chronic underinvestment is to blame.

At least 18.5 million Nigerian children are out of school as of 2026, according to UNICEF.

The government disputes the figure.

But whether it is 18.5 million or 8 million, the crisis is undeniable.

And yet, as of March 2026, 21 states and the FCT had failed to access N97.8 billion in Universal Basic Education Commission matching grants, money earmarked to build schools, train teachers, and get children into classrooms.

It sat idle in government accounts while children sat on bare floors, or did not sit anywhere at all, because there was no school within reach of their homes.

This is the real crisis. Not the structure of the school system. The refusal to fund it.

Lessons from Finland, the UK and the US

Finland is often held up as the gold standard, but what is forgotten is how long it took to build.

The Finnish reform of the 1970s was a decades-long effort to prioritise equity and teacher quality.

Since 1979, every Finnish teacher has held a master’s degree. It succeeded not because of a single structural change, but because of sustained political will.

Nigeria has had four major education reforms since independence.

Each was announced with fanfare.

None was given the time, funding or consistency to succeed.

The United Kingdom, like Nigeria, has a history of policy instability, from the 1870 Forster Act to the 1944 Butler Act, the comprehensives, and the 1988 national curriculum.

Each reform was driven by political ideology as much as educational need.

The United States offers a different lesson. Its system is highly decentralised, but this has produced profound inequality.

In many parts of America, a child’s ZIP code predicts educational achievement and future earnings with alarming consistency.

What Nigeria Should Actually Do

First, fund the system adequately. It is no coincidence that 6-3-3-4 failed at the very point where it required investment, the vocational component.

You cannot restructure a school system and expect different outcomes without laboratories, workshops, equipment and trained instructors.

Second, invest in teachers. Nigeria’s teachers are overworked, underpaid and undertrained. Competitive salaries, continuous training and modern pedagogy are not optional.

Third, declare a national education emergency. The funding exists. The N97.8 billion in unaccessed UBEC grants proves it.

What is missing is the political will to enforce the conditions attached to that money, and to make education a justiciable right citizens can enforce in court.

Fourth, commit to a 10-year moratorium on structural reforms. Nigeria needs a national education vision enshrined in law and insulated from the whims of individual ministers.

A Question of Vision

The woman I know, the retired teacher, once told me something I have never forgotten.

“The problem is not that we don’t know what to do,” she said. “The problem is that the people who make the policies have never sat in a classroom where the roof leaks.”

She is right.

The problem is not a lack of knowledge. It is a lack of will.

As columnist Owei Lakemfa put it:

“Education is like the staircase in a house; it is a linear progression. It does not matter whether the steps are 6-3-3 or 12. So, the issue is not the system, but the vision, policy, implementation, political will and sincerity.”

The question is not whether 6-3-3-4 should be replaced.

The question is whether Nigeria has the political will to build an education system that serves all its children, regardless of what that system is called.

This is precisely the kind of conversation that must continue, and Chief Tola Adeniyi and Professor Adeniran would do ample justice to it.

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The fourth edition of ValidViewNetwork’s Monthly Global Discourse holds on Sunday, September 27, 2026, virtually.