From Jonathan to Tinubu: The Unfinished Education Agenda
By Maryam Farouk
I have often wondered what happens to a nation’s dreams when those entrusted with carrying them forward change. In Nigeria, a change of government can sometimes feel like a change of direction, even when the problems confronting the country remain the same. Policies are renamed, priorities shift, and projects begun under one administration may struggle to survive into the next.
Nowhere is this more consequential than in education. A child entering school today does not care which administration approved the classroom, recruited the teacher or designed the curriculum. What matters is whether that child receives the quality education promised.
From Goodluck Jonathan to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s education story raises a fundamental question: what happens to national reforms when political leadership changes?
In infrastructure, successive governments have shown that continuity is possible. Projects initiated under one administration can be reviewed, funded and completed by another. The Abuja-Kaduna and Lagos-Ibadan rail projects, the Second Niger Bridge and several major roads demonstrate that political transitions do not necessarily have to mean starting over.
Education, however, tells a different story.
Successive governments have announced ambitious programmes, established institutions and introduced new interventions, yet the sector continues to struggle with inadequate funding, weak infrastructure, teacher shortages, poor learning outcomes and disruptions in tertiary education. The challenge, therefore, is not simply a lack of government action, but the difficulty of sustaining reforms long enough for their impact to become visible.
Under former President Goodluck Jonathan, the Federal Government introduced initiatives including the Almajiri Education Programme, established nine federal universities in 2011 and expanded interventions in tertiary education. These measures increased access in several areas, but deeper structural problems remained. Disagreements between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over funding, revitalisation and the implementation of agreements would become a recurring challenge.
The Muhammadu Buhari administration inherited these issues, but tensions in the university system persisted. In 2022, ASUU embarked on an eight-month strike over funding, revitalisation and the implementation of previous agreements with government. The strike was eventually suspended in October following court intervention and negotiations, although the union said several issues remained unresolved.
The episode reflected a broader problem: education challenges have often been managed as periodic disputes rather than addressed through sustained, system-wide reform.
President Bola Tinubu inherited much of this unfinished business and has introduced new interventions, particularly in higher education. The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), for instance, represents a shift towards supporting students’ access to tertiary education through financing. The administration has also continued investments in tertiary infrastructure and digital learning.
These measures address important gaps, but expanding access is only one part of the equation.
The deeper question is whether Nigeria is investing sufficiently in the teachers, institutions, infrastructure and learning systems needed to make that access meaningful. In June 2026, Education Minister Tunji Alausa acknowledged that federal allocations to education have historically remained between 5 and 8 per cent of the national budget, below the 15–20 per cent benchmark commonly associated with UNESCO recommendations. He linked the funding gap to challenges affecting infrastructure, research and access.
More recent analysis by UNICEF paints an even more troubling picture. Its September 2026 report said government expenditure on education as a share of total government spending declined from 9.3 per cent in 2015 to 3.6 per cent in 2023. It also highlighted serious learning deficiencies among children who are already in school.
This is where the distinction between projects and systems becomes important.
A bridge can be completed within a political term. A railway can be commissioned. A school building can be inaugurated. But improving education requires sustained investment over decades: recruiting and retaining competent teachers, maintaining classrooms and laboratories, improving curricula, funding research, strengthening school governance, protecting children from insecurity and ensuring that learning actually takes place.
That long horizon makes education particularly vulnerable to political cycles.
A new administration may launch a fresh programme while redesigning or abandoning an existing one. Another may inherit it, rename it or redirect its funding. By the time meaningful results should emerge, the political leadership may have changed.
The result is a system that risks being repeatedly restarted instead of steadily improved.
The scale of the challenge is evident in Nigeria’s basic education crisis. Millions of children remain out of school, while many who attend still struggle to acquire foundational skills. UNICEF’s latest public-finance assessment also notes significant deficiencies in mathematics and foundational reading among Nigerian learners.
There is, however, an opportunity to address part of the funding challenge. The National Assembly has passed and harmonised an amendment seeking to raise the Federal Government’s statutory allocation to the Universal Basic Education Commission from 2 per cent to 5 per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The Bill was transmitted to President Tinubu on July 30, 2026, and, as of September 2026, remained subject to presidential assent.
But increased funding alone will not guarantee better education. Resources must translate into teachers in classrooms, functioning schools, relevant learning materials, measurable outcomes and transparent expenditure.
This is why the debate should move beyond which administration did more or less. Jonathan, Buhari and Tinubu each inherited challenges that developed over time. No single president can repair decades of institutional weakness within four or eight years.
What Nigeria needs is an enduring national education compact that survives political transitions.
Such a framework should establish measurable targets for basic education, teacher development, tertiary infrastructure, research, digital learning, school security, student welfare and funding. It should also provide a transparent mechanism for tracking implementation, allowing citizens to see what was budgeted, what was released, what was spent and what outcomes were achieved.
The Federal Ministry of Education has already moved towards greater transparency through its Federal Tertiary Institutions Governance Transparency Portal, which provides data on institutional budgets, student enrolment, research grants, intervention funds and other indicators. Such systems could form part of a broader culture of public accountability.
The principle should be simple: a change of government may alter priorities, but it should not erase the country’s long-term education commitments.
Nigeria’s experience with roads, railways and bridges shows that continuity is possible. The same principle must apply to education.
The unfinished promise is not Jonathan’s alone, nor Buhari’s, nor Tinubu’s. It belongs to the Nigerian state.
The real measure of progress will therefore not be the number of programmes an administration launches, but whether it leaves behind an education system strong enough for its successor to improve rather than reinvent.
For Nigeria, that continuity must begin where every national transformation ultimately begins: in the classroom.
Maryam Farouk is a Multimedia Broadcast Journalist. She wrote via [email protected].
