Education Will Suffer Under The New Regime Of Fuel Subsidy Removal if..

I received this email from Mrs Comfort Ogunye, Executve Director, Female Leadership Forum and I thought I should share it. 

The article is on the effect of the removal of fuel subsidy on education. It is a research carried out by Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA).

Whether a state is classed as economically developed or developing, the forces of globalization will impact upon national social policy choices in a variety of ways. Hence the decision of Nigerian government to remove the fuel subsidy may not be unconnected with international policy directives issued by the powerful International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The world is getting increasingly interconnected in terms of policy where fiscal policy decisions in Washington (IMF and World Bank) have huge impact on policy delivery in other parts of the world. Therefore the current subsidy removal on fuel induced by unbridled global forces will naturally affect education financing and service delivery in Nigeria.

Though not openly admitted by international financial actors, there however exist external policy guide often applied by external agents like the IMF and the World Bank to influence less powerful nation states like Nigeria to bend their domestic policies in favor of Neo Liberal preference for privatization and an open market economy which naturally favors the powerful.

 On her recent trip to Nigeria, the newly appointed Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde conferred with the Federal Government shortly before the removal of fuel subsidies.  This disposition dated right back to the 1980s when IMF/World Bank conditional aids in Africa induced reduction in government interference  and enhanced privatization of the economy  in line with Neo Liberal preference as we have in our current scenario.

The IMF’s evaluation of the Poverty Reduction Policy of Nigeria also reveals the subtle interplay between domestic policy and the preferred direction by the IMF

In the Nigerian education sector, the IMF has often prevailed on the country to implement huge budget cuts resulting in consequent fall in quality. The severe decline of the oil market in the early 1980s, combined with the IMF Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), led to drastic reductions in spending on education. The result was unpaid teacher salaries, degradation of education facilities at all levels and strikes in schools. The outcome was a severe decline in literacy rates in the country. Facts have it that the country’s literacy level has continued to fall. Literacy rate declined to 64.1% by 1999 from 71.9 % in 1991 and to 55.3 % in 2003.

The decline in budget allocation to the education sector in Nigeria which started in the 1980s left a huge development gap in the education sector till date and has also tremendously slowed down acceleration towards  the achievement of the EFA goals set for 2015.Almost close to 3 decades after the SAP period, Nigeria in year 2010 continues to struggle and move at a very slow pace in terms of  school enrolment  and therefore unable to fully cater for the its large out of school children and adults.

Shortly before the current removal of the fuel subsidy, the Nigerian Government countered the IMF demand requesting for a devaluation of the Naira arguing that the country would rather take strenuous steps to improve social infrastructure which it deemed a better panacea.

However things took a different turn with the removal of the fuel subsidy possibly due to policy arm twisting from the IMF. Though supporters of the subsidy removal argue that savings would be tailored towards infrastructural development and hence recover the lost decades of underinvestment in basic infrastructure like education and health, however a variable that is constantly out of the grasp of the government is Corruption.

It should be clear that corruption and not subsidy led to the failure of refineries and a shameful purchase of oil from less endowed nations. Corruption and not subsidy made the nation an economic under achiever. By insisting on subsidy removal President Jonathan has cleverly avoided a confrontation with corruption and would rather task hapless Nigerians further. This is because corruption takes a bigger toll on the poor by increasing the cost of public services and lowering their quality: education inclusive.

Consequently the President’s gamble may not go far in saving funds to improve the standard of education if the unattended evil of corruption is not tackled headlong!

Currently a lot of wastage exists in the educational system. According to some studies, the Nigerian government loses about 40% of its budget to either misappropriation or to wrong projects. And if education must move forward the issue of corruption must be tackled in its entirety.

Furthermore, the consequent impact of the IMF imposed policy options on the education sector which led to a lot of distortion and hindrance in the attainment of education objectives like quality and retention corroborate the need for a stronger role of the citizens in the affairs of governance especially when viewed on the weak capacity of the Nigerian government to deliver fundamental objectives for socio – economic development enshrined in the constitution.

The mass distortion of education objectives during the SAP era in Nigeria and consequent decline in literacy level make it mandatory for the government to raise the stake and invest more in education and not to cut back on spending as often the goal of IMF policy advocates.

The subsidy removal may come with the objectives of freeing up more funds for educational development, however the IMF fiscal policy of spending cuts on recurrent expenditure where teachers’ salaries belong may have a negative side effect on education thereby creating a huge deficit in terms of quality human resources needed to make Nigeria highly competitive in the global socio economic order.

Though one cannot totally discountenance the need for nation states like Nigeria to freely engage with the global process as envisaged by the Neoliberals agents, however the policy choice for Nigeria would have to be guided in the best interest of the millions of her uneducated population through a state driven investment in education which would serve to build the human and infrastructural capacity much needed for Nigeria to remain competitive in the fierce global economic framework.

Indeed this calls for more vigilance on the part of government

-IMF policy compact and more fiscal transparency and citizens participation in education budgeting. Without a genuine institutionalization of citizens participation in education budget process the goals of the subsidy removal would remain an illusion and would further promote the paradox of scarce resources in the midst of plenty.

Wale Samuel, Policy Advisor Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA)