No reliable data bank on education issues in Nigeria — CSACEFA boss

Omole

Mr Omole Babatunde, an education advocate, is the national moderator as well as the Osun State and Southwest coordinator of the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education For All (CSACEFA) in Nigeria. In this interview, he speaks to MODUPE GEORGE about the activities of the body and the roles civil society organisations are playing to ensure an inclusive education for all in Nigeria.

WHAT is CSACEFA all about?

CSACEFA is an acronym for the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education For All in Nigeria. It is a coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Community-based Organisations (CBOs) and Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) that are working on education issues in Nigeria. About 40 NGOs came together in the run-up to the World Education Summit in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000 and formed the coalition in Nigeria. Over time, these organisations have been able to expand and develop. The essence basically is to come together as non-state actors to ensure a holistic education development in the country.

Basically, our mission is to ensure free, quality and inclusive education for all through effective participation of civil societies, while our vision is to ensure a Nigeria guaranteed of quality education and dignity for all.

What informed the idea of a coalition?

It is a known fact that if you compare the educational system in Sub-Sahara Africa to that of others in some parts of the world, you will realise that we are not at par with the developed nations of the world. So, the Sub-Sahara Africans took the initiative and they decided to come together in order to bridge these gaps and the challenges militating against the holistic development of education in the African nations.

Narrowing it down to Nigeria, to ensure that the education of our dream is actualised where we have good and quality infrastructure, the underdeveloped areas having access to good and quality education, adequate human resource, great teachers and up-to-date curriculum, then these issues must be tackled head-on. This could be achieved by ensuring that CSOs, FBOs and CBOs and some other support groups come up with action plans and form a solid structure whereby they can interact and devise advocacy approaches to make the much-needed change in the education sector.

What is the relationship between CSACEFA and ANCEFA?

CSACEFA is the Nigerian version of the Africa Network Campaign on Education For All (ANCEFA). ANCEFA is a nucleus, a regional network which brings together independent coalitions and networks from 23 countries both in English and French-speaking Africa to undertake activities which enable Africans to achieve their growth aspirations through free and quality education. At this level, we are able to bring to the table whatever educational issues we are having in our country, while ANCEFA assures us of a good strategy or approach to deploy in tackling them. With this opportunity, we learn from the education contents of other African nations. At that level, we all gather in the general assembly every other year, using the opportunity to engage our state actors and government.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

How much input does CSACEFA have in the formulation of education policies in Nigeria?

At every level, we work together with the state actors. We have the State Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Ministry of Education and other agencies that are actually saddled with education issues and policy formation and development at every level in the nation. Like I said, we have our organisation all over the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). So, one of the key things we do is to stage high and low level advocacies to ensure that we have a relationship with the government of the day. We don’t see ourselves as activists or people antagonising the government, but as people who really want to work hand-in-hand with the government to give all the needed support. We make the government accountable when the need arises. We give them our technical inputs and the feedback we are getting from the communities, units or states as regards education issues.

In specific terms, can you spell out some of the ways in which these inputs are felt?

At the state level, almost all our members are involved in the development of the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) operational plans and policy. What we used to have was the Parent Teacher Associations, which were directly and indirectly overseeing the activities of schools, but now, through our intervention, the government at all levels have keyed into this and other workable ideas from nations such as Australia and Venezuela, which had in turn improved access to education. In every school today, there must be one traditional leader who is close to the school.

Is the SBMC formulation CSACEFA’s idea?

No, it wasn’t our idea, but we are part of the effort. We helped in the development of the policy in other states so they can also adopt it. This is one of the policies in which we have been actively involved and it is making the much-needed impact. When it started, everybody keyed into it because they felt they could take ownership of the schools in their communities against the backdrop that schools belong directly to the government.

We have been part of other key policies from budgeting to gender-responsive policies and even the ‘Six School Initiative’. Lately, part of our project is about reviewing and analysing all the educational policies of CSOs in Nigeria in order to bridge some identified gaps. Very soon the report will come out and we will do the official presentation to the public.

The rate of out-of-school children in the country keeps increasing by the day. What has your effort been so far in this aspect?

There is something we are not getting right on the issue of out-of-school children and where we got it wrong as a nation is that we don’t have a reliable data bank for all these things. What we have realised as a body is that most of the data we are working with are given mostly by the development partners in the country. Whether we like it or not, the development partners can only do their bit in ensuring that things actually augur well for our education system; we can’t delegate responsibilities to them. We need to take hold of our own data; we need to set the parameters. We have so many researchers in the education system, so, why don’t we leverage our local resources and come up with extensive data evidence stating the true picture and rate of the out-of-school children, coupled with some other indicators in the education sector. Do we really have the correct data that we can work with on some of these issues in the education sector?

The kind of strategy to curb the out-of-school children issue in the country varies from one region to another. The strategy that I need in the South-West may not be applicable in Jigawa State. From the report of our members, we have realised that while the Northerners are talking about the rate of out-of-school girl-child, the South-East are talking about the rate of out-of-school boy-child. However, going by UNICEF’s assessment of 2018, we have close to 11 million out-of-school children, and that is the data we all have been quoting; but between then and now, there have been so many challenges that have put so many children out of school. I can say that we still don’t have the true rate of how many children are out-of-school.

You sounded as if there were no financial challenges

I wouldn’t want to narrow everything down to funding; I would rather talk about resources. We need key people in society. Most of the faith-based organisations are not working because they are getting funding somewhere; they only saw the need to make a difference in their communities. If there is any key thing that we really need whenever we want to tackle challenges, it is our passion. We are also leveraging our membership strength. Nevertheless, that does not mean that we do not need funding. There was a time we used to have support from our development partners but in the last couple of years, due to recession, we have been having depletion in terms of development partners of the civil society organisation, and it has been a very tough one for us. So, funding has been very difficult to come by. We try to talk to bilateral organisations, agencies, the government and the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in any way they can support, which can come in terms of capacity development, infrastructure and technicalities.

What is your relationship like with the government?

Gone are the days when governments saw civil societies as antagonists. We are here to complement the government’s effort, because sometimes their best might not be good enough. Even though we want to make them accountable, we do it in such a way that we don’t betray their trust or cause chaos in the society. All around, we have had a very good and quality relationship with the government, but we only hope that the government will see us the way we and the society see them as partners in the progress in the area of educational development.

MODUPE GEORGE