A basic litmus test for judging the performance of any government or political party is its achievement in the education sector.
Education lays the foundation for the development of every other sector of a nation. Achievements in education should, therefore, be among the most important milestones of any government.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) produced the presidents who governed Nigeria continuously from 1999 to 2015. However, by the end of that period, the education sector was still struggling with many of the problems inherited from the era of military rule. The party lost the presidency in the 2015 general election after 16 years in power.
Education policies were often unstable, strike actions were frequent, and funding remained a major problem. In summary, the education sector did not improve as much as Nigerians had expected after the country returned to democratic government.
The consequences could be seen across society in rising unemployment, crime, violence and the slow pace of scientific and technological development.
The PDP’s manifesto on education is reproduced below as a reference for assessing the party’s performance.
Editorial note: This is the version of the education and science and technology sections available when this article was originally written. Later editions of the PDP manifesto used revised wording and targets. An INEC-hosted edition similarly promises free and compulsory basic education, improved access, better quality and increased enrolment.
PDP Objectives for Education
The manifesto described education as an important social instrument for promoting national unity among Nigeria’s diverse peoples.
It stated that a PDP government would:
ensure that the educational system was improved;
ultimately provide free and functional education at all levels;
integrate political and civic education into the formal education system, with emphasis on the Constitution, the state and democratic principles;
foster and expand education at all levels and in all fields of knowledge; and
encourage private and voluntary organisations to establish schools, subject to compliance with government policies.
Proposed Strategies for Education
The PDP promised to pursue the following strategies:
Promote pre-primary education by encouraging the establishment of private nursery schools so that every Nigerian child would have an opportunity to begin education at the nursery level.
Provide:
free and compulsory primary education;
free and compulsory junior secondary education; and
free and qualitative senior secondary education.
Expand the Unity School system as a model and an instrument for promoting national unity.
Encourage greater involvement of private individuals and organisations in the delivery of educational services, subject to government regulation.
Establish adult and continuing education centres to promote mass literacy among Nigerians.
Provide technical educational institutions with well-equipped workshops and adequate numbers of properly trained teachers.
Encourage the establishment of private universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, subject to government regulation.
Provide adequate funding for university education.
Improve the social and economic status of teachers and other education personnel through better conditions of service.
Provide free university education for students studying science, technology and medicine.
Provide Federal Government scholarships based on merit.
Provide libraries, laboratories and workshop facilities in schools and colleges.
Encourage universities to establish and operate consultancy units.
Guarantee academic freedom within the university system.
Encourage entrepreneurs to provide affordable hostel accommodation for university students.
Train more teachers and enforce the requirement that the Nigeria Certificate in Education should be the minimum qualification for primary school teachers.
Provide special educational facilities for the children of nomads.
Provide adequate facilities and trained personnel for learners with disabilities.
PDP Objectives for Science and Technology
The manifesto also promised to:
provide an adequate industrial base for rapid technological development and promote scientific and technological literacy among Nigerians;
encourage the acquisition, adoption, use and appreciation of scientific and technological inventions and methods in everyday life; and
promote appropriate technologies required for sustainable development.
Proposed Science and Technology Strategies
The party promised to:
provide facilities and create an environment suitable for promoting scientific and technological literacy;
encourage scientific and technological research institutions to develop simple tools and industrial equipment from locally available raw materials;
promote an enquiring and inventive spirit at every level of the education system;
encourage the development of a scientific and technological culture among Nigerians; and
accelerate the completion of iron, steel, gas and petrochemical plants under construction in the country.
How Well Were the Promises Fulfilled?
The manifesto contained many attractive promises. However, a manifesto should not be judged by the beauty of its language. It should be judged by the extent to which its promises are translated into measurable improvements.
A fair assessment must also recognise that the Federal Government does not control every aspect of education. State and local governments, school proprietors, regulatory agencies, teachers, parents and communities all have important responsibilities.
Nevertheless, the party that controlled the Federal Government for 16 years had sufficient time and authority to provide national direction, strengthen institutions and demonstrate what was possible.
Expansion of Access to Education
The PDP administrations recorded some achievements in expanding access.
The Universal Basic Education Programme was introduced in 1999 to provide greater access to basic education. The Compulsory, Free Universal Basic Education Act was subsequently enacted in 2004.
The National Open University of Nigeria was revived in 2002, giving more people an opportunity to obtain university education through open and distance learning.
There was also a considerable expansion in the number of public and private universities. By May 2015, the National Universities Commission reported that Nigeria had 61 approved private universities. Several new federal universities were also established during the later years of the PDP administration.
The establishment of more institutions created additional admission opportunities. It also partly fulfilled the manifesto’s promise to encourage private participation in education.
However, an increase in the number of schools and universities did not automatically produce an equal improvement in quality.
Many institutions struggled with inadequate facilities, overcrowded classrooms, shortages of qualified personnel and limited research funding. Access expanded, but the quality and affordability of the education available remained uneven.
Free and Functional Education
The promise to provide free and functional education at all levels was not fully achieved.
Although basic education was declared free and compulsory, many families continued to pay for uniforms, books, transportation, examinations, levies and other school-related expenses.
The existence of a policy did not always mean that it was properly implemented. Millions of children remained outside formal schooling, particularly in poorer communities and parts of northern Nigeria.
The promise of free university education for all students of science, technology and medicine was also not fulfilled as a nationwide policy.
Tuition might have remained officially low or absent in some federal institutions, but students and their families still paid various charges and carried much of the cost of accommodation, books, transport and daily living.
Funding and Industrial Disputes
Adequate funding was one of the central promises in the manifesto, but it remained one of the most persistent sources of disagreement between the government and education workers.
Public universities experienced repeated strike actions over funding, university autonomy, staff welfare and the implementation of agreements between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Industrial action did not begin under the PDP, but it continued repeatedly during the party’s years in government. Research covering the democratic period shows that university strikes consumed a substantial number of academic days and repeatedly disrupted students’ programmes.
The long university strike of 2013 was a particularly strong indication that the relationship between the government and university workers had not improved sufficiently.
The restructuring of the Education Trust Fund into the Tertiary Education Trust Fund under the TETFund Act of 2011 was an important intervention. TETFund provided supplementary funding for infrastructure, research, staff development and libraries in public tertiary institutions.
However, supplementary intervention could not completely replace proper and consistent government funding.
Teachers and Learning Conditions
The manifesto promised to improve the social and economic position of education personnel and to train more teachers.
Some efforts were made through teacher-training programmes and the enforcement of the Nigeria Certificate in Education as the minimum teaching qualification at the basic-education level.
Nevertheless, many teachers continued to work in difficult conditions. Problems included irregular salaries in some states, limited opportunities for professional development, overcrowded classrooms and shortages of teaching materials.
The promise to provide libraries, laboratories and workshops in all schools and colleges was far from being achieved. Many public schools lacked basic facilities, while some institutions had laboratories that were poorly equipped or no longer functional.
Science and Technology
The manifesto recognised that national development required scientific literacy, research, innovation and industrial growth.
However, Nigeria’s scientific and technological development remained slow. Universities and research institutes produced valuable studies, but weak links between research, industry and government limited the practical application of many findings.
Major industrial projects, including the steel sector, did not develop as expected. Nigeria continued to depend heavily on imported equipment, manufactured goods and technologies.
The country produced many graduates in science and engineering, but it did not create enough research opportunities, industries or jobs in which their skills could be fully applied.
Overall Assessment
It would not be entirely correct to say that nothing was achieved during the PDP’s 16 years in government.
The period witnessed:
the introduction and legal establishment of Universal Basic Education;
the revival of the National Open University of Nigeria;
the expansion of federal and private universities;
the establishment of TETFund in its present form;
increased private participation in education; and
various scholarship, teacher-training and school-development programmes.
However, these achievements fell far below the broad promises contained in the manifesto.
The party promised free and functional education at all levels, adequate university funding, improved conditions for teachers, properly equipped schools, affordable student accommodation, mass literacy and rapid scientific and technological development.
By 2015, many of these promises had either not been fulfilled or had been implemented only partially.
The appropriate judgement may therefore not be that the PDP achieved nothing, but that its performance did not match either the length of time it spent in power or the ambition of its manifesto.
In that sense, the verdict remained: some progress, but still far too poor.
Update: July 2026
This article was originally written while the PDP still controlled the Federal Government. The party lost the presidency in 2015 and has remained outside the federal executive since then.
The update is important because the education problems discussed in the article did not disappear with the change of political party. Funding disputes, strikes, inadequate school facilities, teacher shortages, poor learning outcomes and the large number of out-of-school children have continued under later governments.
Recent World Bank estimates indicate that approximately 17.1 million Nigerian children aged 5–14 are out of school. The Bank also estimates that although a Nigerian child may expect to complete about 10.2 years of schooling by age 18, the amount actually learnt is equivalent to only about five years of effective education.
These continuing problems do not remove the PDP’s responsibility for its record between 1999 and 2015. They show, however, that Nigeria’s education crisis is deeper than the failure of one political party.
As the next election cycle approach, every party seeking power should be required to present clear, measurable and properly funded education plans. Citizens should also compare those promises with actual results rather than allowing manifestos to be forgotten immediately after elections.
Education should not be treated merely as a campaign promise. It should remain one of the main standards by which every government is judged.