PHOTO: LAURETTE ABUYA/ACTIONAID
SECTION 3. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Nigeria has a very long way to go to deliver inclusive
and not sufficiently funded to
basic education, especially to the most marginalised
support workforce development
and excluded. Given the lack of credible official figures
for inclusive education. This
on children with disabilities in Nigeria, or the extent of
is manifest in a lack of teacher
their exclusion from education, it is hard to know the
training and a persistent shortage
full scale of the issue.
of qualified teachers, both overall
Nigeria has a very long way to go to deliver inclusive basic education, especially to the most marginalised and excluded.
and in terms of specialised training, at What we do know, however, is that there is very little
state and federal levels.
public provision for children with disabilities, and where there is it is either in private or segregated
Bringing the NPIEN to life requires a significantly
schools (and often both). There is little political will or
boosted workforce, and for all States to develop,
funding to back a move towards inclusive education;
finance and implement their own strategies. Chronic
and without substantially more of both, Nigeria’s draft
levels of underfunding of public education means
federal inclusive education strategy cannot hope to be
that more state funding is needed, including greater
operationalised.
utilisation of the UBEC fund, as well as significant increases in overall education sector funding, through
Teacher numbers are inadequate to provide quality and
concrete actions to boost overall government
inclusive basic education for all children. The education
revenues.
workforce is highly unequally spread across the country
THE BEDROCK OF INCLUSION: WHY INVESTING IN THE EDUCATION WORKFORCE IS CRITICAL TO THE DELIVERY OF SDG4
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