Reflections on Policy Reforms in Nigeria’s Primary Education, 1882-2020

Abstract

Primary education, as the basic foundation for all subsequent levels of educational system, has been considered worldwide as the key towards development of any modern nation. Over sixty years after national political independence, Nigerian’s elementary education is still grappling with the problem of evolving a sustainable policy for national development. Successive governments in Nigeria have made several attempts to address the problems through policy reforms. The latest of such reform agenda is the Universal Basic Education (UBE) introduced in 1999. Thus this paper, undertakes a survey of policies instituted to guide the Nigeria’s primary education and the series of adjustments to the policies with the hope of providing sustainable policy framework for Nigerian children education in order to fulfill the national aspirations in the twenty-first century. The paper argues that a realistic policy for our basic education should be based on adequate and well informed data and an honest commitment on the part of the policy makers ,implementers’ and managers.