Not less than 315,579 classrooms across Nigeria are in bad condition.
Data EduCeleb.com obtained from the Federal Ministry of Education shows these are among the over 1.1 million classrooms covered in a national survey published in 2019.
The schools included both government owned and private schools across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The data focused on the basic education sub-sector in the country.
Particularly, the government identified 52,630 bad classrooms at the Early Childhood Care and Development Education (ECCDE) level and 224,412 in primary schools.
Also, 38,537 Junior Secondary School classrooms are said to be in bad condition.
‘Bad’ classroom undefined
The data did not give a specific definition of what was mean by the “bad condition” of the classrooms.
However, going by what the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) usually provides in schools through its intervention funds, EduCeleb.com presumes that it represents the global definition of one.
According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), a good classroom is one which includes adapted infrastructure and materials for students with disabilities.
UNESCO also categorises good classrooms to be those that have electricity, internet access, computers, single-sex toilets, clean drinking water, and basic hand washing facilities.
It is not immediately clear how many of the schools covered in the data have all these facilities combined to be described as good.
State governments through their respective State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) have the responsibility of ensuring quality facilities are available for learning at the basic education level. Whereas, the Federal Government intervenes by matching funds with states based on determined procedures that would grant states access to such funds.
How bad classrooms are across states
On a state by state basis overall, the Kano State has the highest number of classrooms in bad conditions across Nigeria with 17,621 classrooms.
It is closely followed by Kaduna State with 17,542 classrooms and Akwa Ibom with 16,447 classrooms.
Imo follows with 14,607 classrooms. Then, Benue has 14,216 bad classrooms.
These are tailed by Oyo, Niger, Plateau and Ondo with 13,180, 12,334, and 11,528 classrooms respectively.
Among the states with the least number of classrooms in bad condition are Bayelsa with 2,358 the FCT with 2,521, Yobe with 3,328, Zamfara 3,815, Gombe 4,944 and Ekiti with 5,175 classrooms.
The infographics below gives details of the number of classrooms in bad condition across Nigeria.
Meanwhile, proportionate to the sum of classrooms in each state, EduCeleb.com observed that there are more good classrooms in comparison with bad classrooms in Lagos, Ogun and the FCT.
6.8% of classrooms in Lagos are bad compared with 12.3% in Ogun and 14.3% in the FCT.
The worst of states with classrooms in bad condition is Kebbi with up to 50.1% of such.
Kebbi is closely followed by Bauchi with 47%, Sokoto with 44.2%, Borno with 41.7% and Adamawa with 41.5%.
