According to former South African president, Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Today, the world marked the 2023 International Day of Education themed ‘Education is a human right, a public good and a public responsibility’. It presented an opportunity for the Nigerian media to rededicate itself to paying more attention to reporting the state of education.
As the protector of civil liberty, the media must be at the forefront of the struggle to hold the government accountable at the national and sub-national levels. This will ensure that education receives more funding, school children are safe and gender and social inclusion policies are implemented for the benefit of the vulnerable.
At WSCIJ, we recognise the role of education in building a just society. In 2015 we supported stories of some selected Lagos-based journalists under the Programme for Improving Education Reporting (PIER) in collaboration with Developing Effective Private Education Nigeria (DEEPEN). In 2017, we launched the Regulators Monitoring Programme (REMOP) geared at following and reporting activities of government agencies, ministries and institutions to perform oversight functions on sectors and or issues. We embarked on a three-month monitoring of twelve newspapers to gauge the media attention given to education. We funded investigative stories and published status and annual reports on Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC). A photo book on the challenges of basic education in Nigeria was published to reveal its dwindling fortune. Several stakeholders’ meetings, social media campaigns and capacity development activities were organised for reporters and student journalists thanks to support from MacArthur Foundation. Students of Mass Communication from the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Bayero University Kano (BUK) and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria were trained on investigating basic education as eight undergraduates from these Nigerian universities were welcomed on board for a two-month internship programme under REMOP to deepen their reportage of basic education using the tool of investigative journalism in 2018. Also WSCIJ facilitated 40 investigative reports on education and declared a red alert on the state of schools in the country. In 2021, we also initiated a collaborative story project among four media houses and civil society partners– Premium Times, Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Arise Television and New Telegraph Newspaper, to examine important issues around the safety of students in Nigerian schools.
Under our Reportwomen! Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme, some of the (FRLP) fellows have told untold stories in the education sector. A member of the 2017 fellowship, Juliana Francis in her two-part report for the New Telegraph newspaper wrote about the effects of students’ abductions on parents and victims, and the failure of the government to make schools safe for learning in Zamfara, Niger and Kaduna states. The untold story of how 13-yr-old Ochanya Elizabeth Ogbanje died in her quest for education was told by Goodness Adaoyichie while cases of sexual harassment of female lecturers by students were reported by a 2021 fellow, Kofoworola Belo-Osagie.
Against the backdrop of the Federal Government budgetary allocation between 5.68 and 7.9 percent from 2017 to 2022 which falls short of the 15-20 percent international benchmark by the Education for All (EFA) global monitoring report, the Nigerian media must demand more investment in the education sector. In conclusion, the media must go beyond reporting just news about the sector but provide in-depth reports to give it more prominence. For online platforms, dedicated sections should be created on their websites to report education issues while the media must perform its agenda setting role in spotlighting the poor state of basic education in Nigeria by publishing reports that holds all stakeholders and actors to account.
