Title: Nigerian Primary Education in Historical Perspective  BY BODE OLABANJI
Description: Nigerian Primary Education in Historical Perspective   At the end of Second World War in 1945, a new constitution was imposed on Nigeria. This constitution was known as the Richards Constitution of 1945. The constitution was named after the author who was Sir Arthur Richards. He was then the Governor of Nigeria. This constitution divided Nigeria into three regions – East, West and North. These regions correspond with the three largest ethnic groups in the country, the Ibos in the East, the Yorubas in the West and the Hausa-Fulani in the North.  The Richards Constitution became effective in Nigeria in 1946. In 1948, Governor Richards was succeeded by Sir John Macpherson as Governor of Nigeria. At this time, Nigerian nationalists had intensified their efforts for self-governance. This led to the formation of political parties. These political parties were the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (N.C.N.C.) led by Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Actiion Group (A.G.), led by Obafemi Awolowo of the West and the Northern People’s Congress (N.P.C.) led by Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto. These three political parties contributed enormously to the emergence and growth of primary education in Nigeria between 1950 and 1964. Each of these political parties won election in its ethnic region – the N.C.N.C. won in the East, the A.G., in the West and the N.P.C. in the North.   In 1951, the Macpherson constitution was introduced to replace the ineffective Richards constitution. Fafunwa (1974) noted that this constitution provided for democratic election into  the regional houses of assembly, empowered each region to raise and appropriate funds, and more importantly, had power to pass laws on education, health, agriculture and local government. With the regionalization of education in 1951, both the Eastern and Western regional governments led by N.C.N.C. and A.G. respectively made education their priority.   
  The Emergence of Universal Primary Education (UPE) Primary Education in Western Region  At the inception of his administration in 1952 in the Western region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo made it clear to the public that he would give priority attention to health and education. Consequent upon this, the then Minister of Education, Chief S.O. Awokoya presented a comprehensive proposal for the introduction of a free, universal and compulsory education also referred to as Universal Primary Education (UPE) for the western region by January 1955. According to Fafunwa (1974), the proposal included a massive teacher-training programme, the expansion of teacher-training facilities and secondary schools, the introduction of secondary technical education and secondary modern schools.  As proposed, by January 1955, universal free primary education was launched in the west  for all the children in the region within school age of 6-12 years.  This was an exciting occasion and was celebrated throughout the region with parades, sports and feast to mark the achievement of free universal primary education. According to Taiwo (1982:116), the Minister’s message summarized the mood of the region: I am happy that in our life-time primary education for all has begun. We must not forget that debt we owe to those voluntary workers, educationary agencies, missionary bodies, district planning committees, building contractors, officials great and small, who have laboured so hard to bring about this historic event. Fafunwa (1974) noted that in 1954, some 457,000 pupils were attending fee-paying primary schools in the West, but when the scheme was launched in January 1955, some 811,000 children enrolled. These figures represented a jump from 35 percent to 61 percent of the 5-14 year olds. By 1958, more than one million children were enrolled in primary schools. The government, however, underestimated the figures expected at the initial stages; it was originally estimated that some 492,000 would be enrolled in 1955 rising by 100,000 annually, but more than 800,000 were registered. The number of primary school teachers rose from 17,000 in 1954 to 27,000 in 1955. The West 
  government’s budget for education increased from ₤2.2 million in 1954 to ₤5.4 million in 1955 and nearly 90 percent of the budget was spent on primary education alone. The capital expenditure for the construction of primary school buildings was ₤2.4 million for 1955, while a total of ₤5 million was committed to primary school buildings between 1954 and 1958. By 1960, five years after the introduction of free primary education, over 1,100,000 children were enrolled. This represented more than 90 percent of the children of school age in the Western region.  3.3 Universal Primary Education in Eastern Region The introduction of universal free primary education by the Action Group – led government in Western region was a big challenge and threat to the N.C.N.C. – led government in Eastern region. Consequent upon this, the Eastern region also hastily embarked on Universal Primary Education Scheme in 1957. The provision of the scheme abolished fees in both junior and senior primary schools for all pupils in school and for all those eligible but outside the school. As a result of inadequate planning, most of the new schools were staffed with untrained teachers. Inadequate buildings, equipment, poor funding and poor management militated against the scheme in the Eastern region. After one year of existence, the scheme collapsed due to population explosion without a corresponding increase in budget allocation to education, qualified teachers and school facilities.  3.4 Primary Education in Northern Nigeria  The development of education in Northern Nigeria was very slow. As the governments in the East and West aspired to provide universal free primary education to its citizens, the government in the North showed little or no interest in education. Fafunwa (1974) noted that this was due to some reasons. First, the resources were not there. Second, the population of children of school age resident in the region was very high as half of Nigeria’s children of school age reside in the North. Third, some Northern political and religious leaders were not eager to expose their children to western form of education. Fourth, Islamic education was preferred to Western education. As a result of all these, the idea of universal free primary education never bothered most Northern leaders. However, Fafunwa observed that in the Northern region, the number of children enrolled in primary schools rose from 66,000 in 1947 to 205,769 in 1957; in the West, from 240,000 in 1947 to 982,755 in 1957; and in the East from 320,000 to 1,209,167 for the same period. It was also observed that while the East and West had large numerical increases, the rate of increase in pupil population percentage-wise between 1947 and 1957 was slightly higher in the North than in the other two regions.  3.5 Post-Independence Primary Education in Nigeria  So far, we have been discussing primary education in Nigeria before the attainment of independence in 1960. We are now going to discuss primary education after independence. The Ashby Commission’s recommendation was a major catalyst in the development of primary education in Nigeria. In 1959, the federal government appointed a Commission to conduct an investigation into Nigeria’s needs in the field of postsecondary School Certificate and Higher Education over the next twenty years (19601980). The Commission which is usually referred to as the Ashby Commission had a Chairman whose name was Sir Eric Ashby. According to Fafunwa (1974), the Commission noted that Nigeria had made tremendous progress in the field of education. Specifically, it noted that in 1958 it had two and a half million children in primary schools and 25,000 teachers in training. It noted a lack of balance between primary and secondary levels, and between secondary and post-secondary education. The report observed that most of the 80,000 teachers in service were pitifully unprepared for their task, some three-quarters of them were uncertificated and from among those who were trained, two-thirds had no more than  primary school education. Thus, 90 percent of the teachers in the primary schools were not well trained for their work. The Commission which started work on May 3, 1959, submitted its findings to the Federal Ministry of Education on September 2, 1960, just a month before Nigeria’s independence.  With the release of Ashby recommendations, the North started working towards the attainment of Ashby Report target of 25 percent children of the school age-group attending school by 1970. Taiwo (1982:130) reported that the development programme was designed to advance the primary school system towards the ultimate aim of universal primary education as soon as possible, while at the same time providing for an increase of post-primary facilities in order to ensure a balanced system of education.  In both Eastern and Western regions, efforts were made to achieve quantity through their respective universal primary education programmes but were becoming apprehensive of the obvious problems of unqualified staff, automatic promotion, wastage on children who dropped out, falling standards, and the high cost of the programme (Taiwo, 1982). In the Eastern-region, the major focus of the development programme in primary education was on teacher training with particular reference to quality of work in the schools. In the Western region, the emphasis was also on quality.