According to UNESCO, about 35.9 million primary and secondary school learners are currently out-of-school as a result of the school closures. For primary schools, this number totals approximately 25.6 million students, of which about 87 percent (23.5 million) are students enrolled in public schools. The numbers are just as stark for secondary school learners. Of the roughly 10.3 million secondary school students who are out-of-school as a result of the closures, approximately 81 percent (8.4 million) of them are public school students.
In Nigeria, school opportunity is correlated to income level, and public schools differ from private schools in the populations they serve. While private schools serve learners from higher socio-economic backgrounds who are willing and able to pay more to access the better resources offered by private schools, public schools which are usually free, comprise students from lower socio-economic households and low-income areas. In instances where distance learning opportunities are available, uptake will be low from the students in the public school's category, as a result of poor infrastructure such as no electricity, or poor/no internet connectivity, etc.
Opportunities to learn within the homes are also limited, given that a parent’s ability to provide education support to their children will be shaped by their own level of educational attainment, general literacy level, and other commitments. Given the significant relationship between educational attainment and income level, and the correlation between parentals income level and school choice, we can infer that the literacy level of parents in public schools in Nigeria might be lower than their private school counterparts. In instances where the parents are educated, investing the time in training their children during this time might be a luxury.
For Nigeria, the reality is simple - while the school closures are necessary to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 virus until the ban on movement is lifted and schools are reopened, the majority of students will not be learning.

Education is acknowledged largely as a significant tool because it equips students with the functional skills for decent living and generates human capital that can spur economic development. Education has many levels, each of which is essential in its distinctiveness and therefore requires adequate public investment.In Nigeria, government’s policy design and investment focuses mainly on three levels: primary, secondary and tertiary education. In fact, it is not far-fetched to assume that most Nigerians think these are the only levels of education. Government policy, in part, feeds into this narrative with the division of the education system into structures like 6-5-2-3 or more recently 6-3-3-4, in which only primary, secondary and tertiary education are emphasized.

However, there is a fourth level of education—the Early Childhood Education (ECE) which starts from birth through the pre-school, until the child enters the primary level of education. ECE was officially recognized in Nigeria in the 2013 National Policy on Education, with the introduction of 1-6-3-3-4 system. The additional one year covers ECE and was designed to be free and compulsory, thereby extending basic education from 9 to 10 years. According to National Policy of Education (2013), the goal of the ECE is to facilitate transition from home to school and prepare children for primary level of education. This belated recognition of ECE has not raised its status in any significant way. As shown in Figure 1a, among the pupils enrolled in Primary 1 to Junior Secondary School in 2015, only 45% have attended pre-school. It is also telling that the pattern of pre-school attendance reflects the typical dimension of exclusion in education in Nigeria. Specifically, about 75% of those that have not attended pre-school are from rural areas, while non-attendance is highest among children from the poorest households (Figure 1b). Overall, this data suggests that the majority of children transit directly from home into primary school. While home and family education is an important component of ECE, attending pre-school could ensure seamless transition to primary education.

Adequate health financing is a critical element of any strong healthcare system.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, financing and payment models for primary, secondary, and tertiary health care can be significant tools for improving issues of access, quality, and equity in care delivery.  While much effort is made to understand the financing approaches that may be optimal for health systems at large, little is known about financing mechanisms that may work best considering the dominance of out-of-pocket payment and, more importantly, the impact that unexpected, informal costs for care may have on health-seeking behaviour.  The abolition of user fees for public health facilities has become increasingly popular in many low-income countries, with results from numerous studies noting an increase in access and utilization for the poorest populations.  However, abolishing user fees often does not remove the cost of many goods and services related to a care episode.  Though some patients may pay no initial fees for a basic service such as an initial consultation, there are often treatment-related costs that are unknown to the patient.

Given that government does not fully cover the direct costs, parents bear a proportion of the costs of education. Although contributions from parents are expected to be small, this can still present a significant burden depending on households’ income level. Some of the costs reportedly paid by pupils in public schools in Nigeria are shown in Table 3. On average, these costs added up to N25800. For poor households that live below N700 a day, these associated costs amounts to a significant burden to sending their children to school. Essentially, the associated costs of education is the monetary cost that parents were alluding to for children dropping out  or not attending school at all.

A further dissection of the costs paid in public schools in Nigeria reveals another dynamics at play. Government has not been sufficiently funding the institutional and direct costs components as promised in the UBE Act. Some of the reported expenses are for items supposedly cover under the free education programme. For example, school development levy, school supplies and to some extent textbook and exercise books are part of the institutional and indirect costs promised under the UBE Act. Invariably, school administrators are using various creative means to transfer the shortfall in government funding to parents.

Inclusive education implies that education (quantity and quality) is accessible to all children, irrespective of their individual circumstances. However, in Nigeria, some vulnerable groups of children are found to be excluded from quality education. These include children with disabilities, children from nomadic groups, many of the children in the Almajiri education system, and internally displaced children. Worryingly, the socio-cultural and economic backgrounds of children in Nigeria continue to influence their access to education. Furthermore, education data shows gaps in access and learning between the popular dimensions of exclusion: gender, location of residence, region, and wealth. These figures often mask the most critical dimensions and their underlying drivers. Such insights are what CSEA’s ongoing research project, on Educational Performance in Nigeria under the framework of the Southern Voice on the State of the SDGs (SVSS), aims to unveil. In this issue, we highlight some equity concerns relating to access and quality of basic education in Nigeria.