Education

• Economically challenged parents/families cannot afford school fees
• Poor quality of teachers and educators
• Insufficient government funding of education conversely government schools
• Poor teacher remuneration
• Poor quality of infrastructure
• Shortage of quality vocational institutions
• Lack of adult education and retraining opportunities

Situational Analysis

A desk review of Education and Unemployment/Underemployment data from the National Bureau of Statistics (2014 – 2016) shows the correlation between the quality of education in Nigeria and the attendant effect on employment. Total underemployment of 21%, total unemployment of 14.2%, 50% of labor force population with at most primary school proficiency coupled with 50.2% of youth labor force population unemployed or underemployed as at Q4 2016 suggests Nigeria’s education sector is in a state of emergency.

Between 2015 and 2016, there was a downward trend in categories such as number of primary school teachers; number of technical colleges; number of National Certificate of Education and Distance Learning enrolments; Private Teachers’ Training programs; Post Graduate Diplomas in Education; Centers for Basic literacy; as well as number of adult literacy facilitators.

Pistis Foundation will focus on supporting PF beneficiaries, including primary, secondary, tertiary as well as vocational and adult literacy institutions to improve the quality of teachers and infrastructure for a conducive learning environment. In addition, the PF education program will support less privileged people in the society who want to acquire vocational skills or find it difficult to pay for school fees. The selection process will be rigorous to ensure the right candidates are admitted to the program thus ensuring the social return objective of the program is achieved.

Objectives

The PF Education Program will work with academic institutions – primary, secondary and tertiary – as well as vocational training institutions, to develop a broad range of interventions including teacher training, quality improvements and offering academic scholarships. The specific objectives over a 1-year period are:

• To support at least 5 PF partner schools with teachers’ training courses
• To support at least 2 academic and/or vocational training institutions towards improving their quality of infrastructure for learning

Impact Programs

1. Adopt-A-School Program: AASP is a strategic initiative established to support and better position select primary schools within the PF Community, through teacher training, infrastructure development, administrative support, etc.

2. Scholarship Program: The existing E200 scholarship program is now being scaled through PF, to increase the social impact level of TEC, bearing in mind, pilot sessions conducted and reviewed. The need for strategic collaboration and sponsorships is also critical for sustainability.

3. TEN Program: Teachers Excelling Network – TEN – is also a key part of PF’s strategic initiative. Strategic collaboration with key teacher training networks across Nigeria will be ongoing and TEN will take responsibility for redefining and building a relevant, practical and futuristic curriculum for Nigerian teachers upon which the program would ride on.

4. M2M Program: Mothers2Mothers is a vocational training program specially designed for economically challenged mothers with at least 2 children. The women will be made to undergo skill development training within a given period and placed in similar skills groups of 3s (with successful volunteer mentors) upon completion, to enhance their mental, financial and market knowledge on the skill learned.