A number of key institutional and policy drivers can be said to have been responsible
for the appreciable progress made on Goal 1; notably, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture
(FMARD), the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium
Development Goals (OSSAPMDGs), Development Partners, the Small and Medium
Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), the National Poverty Eradication
Programme (NAPEP)-among others. Overall Conclusion on Goal 1: Strong progress made
but goal not met.
MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education: - The net enrolment in basic education
(as domesticated in Nigeria to mean six years of primary schooling and three years of junior
secondary education) has had a fluctuating history of an upward trend to the mid-point
assessment year. This positive trend was however halted in later years as a result of the
disruptions brought about by the Boko Haram insurgency. The insurgency led to the
destruction of many schools with the school children constituting a large size of the internally
displaced population. Consequently, the net enrolment of 60% in 1995 declined to the endpoint net enrolment of 54% in 2013. There is, however, a good policy environment provided
by the Federal Ministry of Education and its parastatals which will aid significant growth in
net enrolment once the Boko Haram phenomenon is effectively checked.
With respect to primary six completion rate, the trend and end-point status show
strong and significant progress. Nigeria remained largely on track towards achieving this
indicator. The completion rate which stood at 73% in 1993 trended upwards in most of the
subsequent years culminating in 82% at the end-point year. The policy environment is good
and supportive of consolidation of the achievements. There are however variations across
states which need to be addressed in efforts to consolidate the achievements.
The literacy rate trended marginally upwards in most of the years from 64% in 2000
to 66.7% in 2014. The significant rate of 80.0% achieved in 2008 could not be sustained.
There were marked variations across states and between the north and the south. With
respect to variations across geo-political zones, the North-east recorded the highest rate of
illiteracy with the insurgency compounding the problem. However, the policy environment at
both the national and subnational levels is very supportive especially with active and growing
collaboration between Nigeria and international development partners. Overall Conclusion
on Goal 2: Appreciable progress but goal not met.
MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women: - The pursuit of gender
parity in basic education in Nigeria has witnessed strong progress when seen against the
prevailing patriarchal culture and practices in most parts of the country. There has been a
steady increase in the ratio of girls to boys in basic education in Nigeria with the end-point
status of 94% in 2013 being a significant achievement compared to the 82% achieved in
1991. The statistics from both the World Bank and Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)
corroborate the high gender parity index recorded by Nigeria. The success at the basic
education level has not been replicated at the tertiary level where there is weak progress
even though the policy environment has been supportive at every level of the educational
pipeline.
Similarly, Nigeria has not done well in the area of proportion of women in wage
employment in the non-agricultural sector with an end-point status of 7.7% in 2010 (the most
recent data). However, in terms of women’s contribution to the total labour force in both
agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, the proportion has considerably increased to a
record 37.7% in 2014. The ILO statistics corroborates this with a 48.1% increase in 2011.
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