Judith-Ann Walker, Executive Director of the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC)
International Day of Education is celebrated every year globally, on January 24th since 2019. The Day focuses on the importance of inclusive, quality and lifelong learning for all, to address barriers of poverty, gender inequality, and conflict.
Nigerians know well the barrier to education faced by millions of young people living in poverty and conflict and experiencing gender inequality. The Nigerian government’s leadership in bringing down poverty barriers to education is unquestionable. Also unquestionable is the tight fiscal space Nigeria is currently facing. This no doubt explains the measured allocation of 6.15% to the education sector in Nigeria’s 2026 budget. This figure of 6.15% translates to N3,596,921,952,356.00, which is 8.85% or N5,172,972,389,358 less than UNESCO’s recommendation of 15% of public expenditure for the education sector. The 6.15% allocation to the education sector in 2026 is also less than the 7.82% allocation to the sector in the 2025 budget. How is the 6.15% or N3,596,921,952,356 for the education sector to be spent in 2026? The 2026 budget lines for the education sector show smaller allocations to sub-lines such as WASH, advocacy and systems strengthening, teaching and learning material and even school safety within the capital budget. The highest % of capital funding, by far – 58% – is allocated to school feeding and nutrition programs; this is followed by out-of-school and special needs children at 14% of the capital budget. Two priority areas of government.
Against the background of the country’s tight fiscal space and to address the anticipated 2026 funding gap for the education sector, in December 2025, the Nigeria Education Forum (NEF) of the Nigerian Governors Forum, called for new sources of complementary funding from the private sector, philanthropists, development partners and state governments. Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, seems to have answered the call of the NEF for complementary funding with the December 11th launch of the STEM Scholarship and Girls Education Program in Lagos state. At the launch, Aliko Dangote committed to a N1trn or $688m 10-year endowment for education.
The Dangote’s N1trillion ($688m) education endowment aimed to bring down barriers to tertiary education for Nigeria’s poor and vulnerable youth and support girls’ education. Over the period 2026-2036, the Scholarship program aimed to reach 1,325,000 vulnerable students in public universities and polytechnics across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas in the 36 states and the Federal Capital.
Dangote’s generous and unprecedented investment in Nigeria’s youth is coming at a critical juncture where USAID’s defunding of development and humanitarian programs in Nigeria has left a significant vacuum in the country’s education funding landscape. While active World Bank education loans, credits and associated grants to Nigeria are important and are adding value, with current estimates to be around US$3.25 billion, the Nigerian government’s commitment to mobilizing resources domestically remains an actionable strategy, given the number of wealthy and committed Nigerians in banking, industry, tech, the oil sector and the creatives economy, both in Nigeria and abroad, ready, willing and already supporting schools in their communities.
To pool-in more domestic philanthropic financing, there is a dire need for a new strategic framework to provide assurances and an institutional template for the education sector’s sustainable financing. It is also critical to coordinate and align domestic philanthropic financing with resources from government, donors, and the lending arms of International Financing Corporations, in one harmonized multi-revenue resourced financing plan.
Against this background, the Dangote award emerges as an important test case, coming under the searchlight of an entire education community in Africa, seeking to learn how public-private partnerships address resource gaps and advance human capital development.
Judith-Ann Walker holds a PhD in International Development from the ISS, the Hague, Netherlands; is a member of the Presidential-High Level Council on Women and Girls (P-HiLAC), Nigeria; and the Executive Director of the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC).
