The twelfth round of the Nigeria COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS) revealed that the share of urban youth attending school or training was 61%, significantly higher than the share of rural youth (49%).
According to the report, more than half (55%) of the youth (15-25 years old) were attending school or training at the time of the twelfth round interviews while 34% of them were working and 11% were neither attending school nor working.
The NLPS 12 report also reveals that the disparities between urban and rural youths are exacerbated by the average age at which they began school or work. While urban youth started school at the average age of 4.3 years old, rural youth started one year later, at the age of 5.5 years.
Urban youth, on the other hand, began working approximately three years later than their rural counterparts. While rural youths start working at 15 years old, urban youths start working at 18 years old. This demonstrates that rural youth spent less time in school and thus accumulated fewer years of schooling than urban youth.
Similarly, with regards consumption distribution, youths from the poorest 20% of households began school at the age of 6.4 but began working around the age of 12. Young people in the richest 20% of households, on the other hand, began school at the age of four and did not begin working until they were nearly 18 years old.
These discoveries are likely to be a stumbling block in Nigeria’s pursuit of an inclusive and equitable quality of education (SDG 4). Precisely, SDG 4.5 anticipates that by 2030, Nigeria would have joined other countries in eliminating gender disparities in education and ensuring equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and children in vulnerable situations.
The survey’s findings that children as young as 12 years old have begun working in rural areas point to a flaw in Nigeria’s universal basic education policy and child rights act. The Nigerian child right act prohibits the use of children for exploitative labour, buying and selling.
Moreso, according to the UBE policy, every government in Nigeria is required to provide free, compulsory, and universal primary and secondary education to all children of primary and junior secondary school age (6-15 years). Children aged 3-5 years are typically for Early Childhood Care and Development Education (ECCDE), children aged 6-11 years for primary school education, and children aged 12-14 years for junior secondary school education, according to a report by the Center for Public Impact.
However, findings like this from the NLPS cast doubts on the effective implementation of the UBE act. The provision of the act stipulates that Universal Basic Education is to provide non-formal programs for updating knowledge and skills for people who dropped out before acquiring the fundamentals required for lifelong learning. This is to create a section for children to complete basic education before they enter adolescence, when they can engage in non-formal education such as apprenticeship training and non-formal skill acquisition.
Apprenticeship, according to Ainley and Rainbird, is still one of the most commonly used means of capacity building, knowledge transfer, and training in most informal sector settings. And according to a dataphyte report, the informal sector can help achieve SDGs 1 (end poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 3 (good health and well-being), 5 (gender equality), 8 (promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment, and decent work), and 9 (improve sustainable industrialization and foster innovation). Thus there is a need for an intensive effort advocating for informal education in the slightest absence of formal education.
Overall, adopting an efficient informal education strategy will put Nigeria on the road to ensuring equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including the university (SDG4.3). This will as well substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship (SDG 4.4).