Iliyasu Abdullahi Bah
In the heart of Nigeria’s North-East, a generation of schoolchildren is grappling with a collapsing education system. Recent findings by The Journal Nigeria reveal that public primary schools in Gombe and Damaturu, Yobe State, are overwhelmed—forcing as many as 200 pupils to share a single teacher.
This staggering pupil-to-teacher ratio—almost six times higher than Nigeria’s own recommendation of 35 students per teacher—has triggered alarm over the region’s deteriorating learning environment. Teachers, already underpaid and overstretched, say they are on the brink of exhaustion.
“It’s physically and mentally draining,” one Damaturu teacher told The Journal Nigeria, requesting anonymity. “We teach multiple subjects back-to-back in under-resourced classrooms. It’s impossible to give each child the attention they need.”
Across multiple schools visited, scenes of neglect were commonplace: suffocating heat in crammed rooms, children seated on cracked floors, sharing tattered books and broken benches. The absence of teaching aids, coupled with noise and chaos, renders learning nearly impossible.
While education across Nigeria faces systemic challenges, the situation in the North-East is particularly dire due to years of insurgency, displacement, and underdevelopment. The region’s fragile recovery has been marred by sluggish implementation of support programmes. The World Bank-backed AGILE project, designed to rehabilitate dozens of schools in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, has made little headway.
“Nothing has changed on the ground,” a school principal in Gombe remarked. “We keep hearing about AGILE, but we’re yet to see the impact.”
International NGOs such as Mercy Corps and Save the Children have stepped in with emergency interventions, setting up temporary classrooms and training volunteer teachers. But without long-term government backing, these efforts barely scratch the surface.
The Journal Nigeria found classrooms packed well beyond UNICEF’s global threshold of 35 students per teacher. In some cases, a single educator is expected to manage over 200 pupils in one session—many of whom arrive at school hungry and fatigued.
Teachers across the region voiced concern about widespread malnutrition. “Most of the children haven’t eaten before coming to school,” a Gombe headmistress revealed. “They’re tired, distracted, and unable to learn.”
The structural failure is mirrored in stark national statistics. A 2023 UBEC Needs Assessment estimated that Nigeria requires over 907,000 new classrooms to accommodate its growing school-age population—a gap fuelled by decades of neglect and poor planning.
Even more alarming is that over 40% of primary-age children in the North-East remain out of school, according to data from UNICEF and the National Bureau of Statistics. Insecurity, poverty, and poor infrastructure are driving a mass exodus from the classroom.
Meanwhile, vital education funds remain locked up. Between 2019 and 2024, over ₦263 billion in UBEC matching grants earmarked for state-level education projects were left untouched. States are expected to contribute 50% of project costs to access these funds—a requirement many fail to meet.
UBEC’s Executive Secretary, Dr Aisha Garba, told The Guardian in May 2025: “The Nigerian child is suffering because of bureaucratic bottlenecks and administrative complacency. Quality education is unattainable when states refuse to claim resources already allocated.”
From 2020 to 2023 alone, more than ₦45.7 billion in UBEC grants were unclaimed. Only 16 out of Nigeria’s 36 states managed to meet the counterpart funding conditions.
Calls for reform have grown louder. Advocacy groups such as BudgIT, UNICEF, and ActionAid have urged the federal government to overhaul funding procedures and strengthen monitoring mechanisms.
Their recommendations include automatic release of unused UBEC grants directly to State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), sanctions for non-complying states, mandatory public reporting on all UBEC-funded projects to curb corruption and mismanagement.
Without urgent action, campaigners warn that children in states like Gombe, Yobe, and Borno will remain trapped in a broken system—facing crowded classrooms, unmotivated teachers, and a future slipping through their fingers.
As one teacher put it: “Our children deserve better. Education is the only way out of poverty and conflict. If we fail them now, we lose the future.”