Gender responsiveness of 2024/2025 A’Ibom budget: Key to successful education policy implementation

Iniabasi Umo, Uyo

Ekamma Andikan (not real name), works at one of the oil mills in Utu Ikot Ekpo, Etim Ekpo Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State. She uses the proceeds of the mill to support her family. Being the eldest child in a family of four children, three girls and one boy, Ekamma had to give up her dreams of completing her secondary education to join her mother to fend for the family and support her siblings when her father died mysteriously.

According to 18-year-old Ekamma, who dropped out of school in senior secondary II, she has been working at the oil mill for two years with her mother; both of them have been providing for the family of five.

“I want my sisters and brother to go to school and complete their education. I hope to learn a trade someday, maybe learn how to sew so that I can also help myself after my siblings have finished their secondary school,” she said.

Unfortunately, for Ekamma and other girls in her circumstance, there is no provision for second chance education in the free education policy of the Akwa Ibom State government. Perhaps, if there was provision for second chance education, girls like Ekamma would have been hopeful of returning to school, and not forced to become their family burden bearers.

The absence and non-integration of gender perspectives in the state education budget over the years is, perhaps indicative of government’s lack of interest in addressing the specific challenges confronting girls education like hardship and poverty, teenage pregnancy, gender-based violence, lack of sanitary facilities, and societal pressures/stereotypes, amongst other things responsible for the non-completion of their secondary education.

Currently, Akwa Ibom State government pays a subvention of N100 per primary school pupil and N300 per secondary school student for the administrative, logistics, and expenses of each child. This free education policy strategy, which was supposed to promote students’ education enrolment and completion has failed to achieve the desired results.

Today, the once celebrated policy is riddled with the problems of indiscriminate and unauthorised school levies, unmotivated and inadequately supervised teachers, irregular inspectors’ visits to schools, lack of enforcement of students’ school attendance, as well as deteriorating structures, among other things affecting the policy.

Statistics shows that the policy has not helped to resolve the gender specific needs of girls as there is an increasing non-completion rate of girls in secondary schools despite their consistent high enrolment rate, according to data from the State Department of Statistics, Ministry of Economic Development.

Data from UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Nigeria Education Fact Sheets 2023 puts the dropout rate of females in upper secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State at 30 percent (27 percent in urban areas and 32 percent in rural areas). Also, the 2022 Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index Survey, says school aged girls between 6-15 years in Akwa Ibom State, who are poor and out-of-school is 10.4 per cent (with a confidence interval of 7.7 percent and 13.1 percent).

These figures are high when compared to other South-South states like Cross River, which has poor and out-of-school girls rate at 6.5 per cent, Delta at 7.3 per cent, Bayelsa at 7.8 percent, Rivers at 5.8 percent, and Edo at 6.7 percent.

Gender responsive contents of 2025 education budgetary allocation

The 2025 education budgetary allocation of Akwa Ibom State is N2,096,356,300.00, an increase from the 2024 revised budget of N1,612,177,080.00, and 2023 revised budget of N1,602,657,600.00. However, there is no dedicated sum allotted to address the specific gender related problems plaguing girls’ education.

What the 2025 education budget has done mostly is to address structural and developmental issues that affect both boys and girls. Perhaps, the light in the tunnel is the allocation of N1 billion in the budget for the construction of new buildings/renovation of dilapidated school blocks at St. Theresa’s Secondary School, Edem Ekpat, Etinan Local Government Area. The once prestigious, only girls’ school in Etinan Federal Constituency, said to be sought after by parents for the enrolment of their girls, has been in a deplorable condition for a long time.

Unfortunately, when our correspondent visited the school, construction/renovation work had yet to begin. Some indigenes of the area who spoke with our correspondent appeared surprised to learn that the government had earmarked N1 billion in the budget for the school, and sounded sceptical that the government would follow through with the renovation.

Emaeyak Essien, an indigene of the area and teacher in the school, mentioned that the State House of Assembly members and commissioners visited the school last year for an assessment of the facilities. He, however, sounded uncertain if the government would follow through with the renovation/construction work as earmarked in the budget.

“Maybe, the money voted for this school in the budget is a scam because last year the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly members and commissioners visited the school,” he said.

Apart from this allocation, there is no special allocations to any other girls’ school or to address exclusive issues relating to the girl child in the budget except the general provision for both genders.

The budgetary provisions captured under the State Secondary Education Board (SSEB), which is not exclusive but would benefit girls’ education include the provision of 160 numbers of compulsory subject textbooks for junior classes (Mathematics, English Language). The state-wide programme had an allocation of N5,000,000.00 in the 2023 revised budget and N640,000.00 in the 2025 approved budget.

Another is the provision of 200 compulsory subject textbooks for senior classes to 20 public secondary schools. This provision, which has N1,000,000.00 in the 2025 approved budget, also had N1,000,000.00 in the 2023 revised budget.

Although N300,000,000.00 was listed under Uniforms and Kits for the provision of school uniforms (2 per child), shoes (1 per child), and exercise books (3 per child) to public schools in the 2024 revised budget and N15,450,000.00 under the 2024 performance January to September, no amount was allocated for the same purpose in the 2025 budget.

Government’s education effort

In July 2023, Akwa Ibom State Governor, Umo Eno, PhD, declared a state of emergency on primary education and directed the immediate renovation and upgrade of facilities in primary institutions across the state, to include structure, educational materials, solar lights, pipe-borne water, and staff quarters. To this end, he promised the conversion of at least one primary school in each of the ten federal constituencies in the state to model schools.

So far, Governor Eno has commissioned remodelled primary schools in Uyo, Essien Udim, Abak, and Oron local government areas. Other achievements in the education sector include investment in technical and vocational education, skill acquisition programmes, support for students by paying West African Educations Council (WAEC) examination fees, bursary and scholarship programmes, education intervention fund for students, who are persons with disabilities (PWDs), and teacher development, among others.

But despite these lofty achievements, the government has failed to make its education budget gender responsive. Gender responsive education budgeting requires the use of a gender lens to highlight and respond to the needs of women, men, boys, and girls, thereby promoting gender equality through budget allocations and expenditure.

Call to action

A gender responsive budget that favours the girl child would ensure that the needs and interests of girls are addressed in expenditure and revenue policies. It therefore behoves the state government to make the education budget gender focused by restructuring and amending policies, integrating gender perspectives throughout the budget cycle, and monitoring and evaluating its achievements using the gender lens.

Gender-tailored programmes for the girl child in the education budget would ensure that girls complete secondary education and develop the knowledge and skills for life and work. One initiative for realising this is using the enrolment and completion data of girls in secondary schools to draw up gender focused strategies that would address the challenges responsible for girls not completing their secondary education.

It would also be helpful to use community enforcement and monitoring teams for school attendance, consisting of community leaders, family heads, parents, and guardians of children under school age.

*Dilapidated structure and the entrance at St. Theresa Secondary school, Etinan, Akwa Ibom State.