Effectiveness of non-formal education programs in Nigeria - Volume 49 - Number 1 - April 2009

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Aldword

Study on the effectiveness of non-formal education programs in Nigeria evaluates how competent learners are in life skills. The research examines the competency level of Nigerian non-formal education learners using a life-skills achievement test administered to a sample of 876 learners. Results indicate that most learners scored below the national benchmark of 50%. Rural dwellers performed more competently than urban learners, and younger learners showed higher competence than older learners.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Life-skills achievement testing and learner competency

Support, funding, and learning resources

Measurement standards and competency frameworks

Australian Journal of Adult Learning Effectiveness of non-formal education programs in Nigeria 191 Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009 Effectiveness of non-formal education programs in Nigeria: how competent are the learners in life skills? J. Gbenga Adewale University of Ibadan, Nigeria In order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Nigeria adopts both formal and non-formal approaches to provide basic education for its citizenry. Thus, to determine the effectiveness of the non-formal approach in providing basic education in Nigeria, this study examines the competency level of Nigerian non-formal education learners on a life-skills achievement test. The test was administered to a sample of 876 learners. The competency level in life-skills of the majority of the learners was below the national benchmark (50%). Rural dwellers were more competent than urban dwellers and young learners were more competent than old learners. Introduction The Nigerian government adopts both the formal and non-formal approaches to eradicate illiteracy by the year 2015.The formal education approach addresses children of school age (who are actually in schools) and the non-formal approach which could also be described as second chance education targetting children, youthsand adults who have either dropped out of school before achieving permanent literacy or have never been to school due to a number offactors.Such factors include poverty and early marriage for girls in the northern part of Nigeria and drop out of schools by boys in some parts of the Eastern States in order to engage in economic activities (Adewale 2006).Therefore, the non-formal approach of education provides opportunity for these disadvantaged children, youth and adults to catch up on basic education and mainstream into the formal system if desired at any given point.As good as this nonformal education (NFE) approach looks, its delivery in the country is confronted with various problems such as ineffective mobilisation and coordination of efforts, lack of a reliable and current database on learner achievement, poor funding, shortage of teaching/learning materials and inadequate logistic support for monitoring of the nonformal program (Adewale 2006). Research evidence shows that learners will achieve more if favourable support (for example, funds) are provided by the government or other bodies such as development partners because these grants received by schools or adult literacy centres could then be used to purchase those materials which are likely to promote learning experiences. Examples of such items are teaching aids and textual materials which are also recognised as predictors of student achievement (Farombi 1998, Onwuakpa 1998).Unfortunately, the trend has been to reduce governments’overall spending both nationally and internationally and, in many cases, those reductions have resulted in declines in 192 J. Gbenga Adewale Effectiveness of non-formal education programs in Nigeria 193 funding for education (Haycock 2005).Hence, it is not possible for schools to have all that is needed to increase students’learning outcomes. In addition to the problem of inadequate funding of NFE, no systematised standard achievement test has been putin place to assess the effectiveness of programs across the board.Adewale (2006) carried out an item analysis of a life-skills achievement test for Nigerian non-formal education learners, using data collected during the Monitoring Learning Achievement (MLA) of Non-Formal Education in each of the 36 States and the Abuja Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria.He did not consider the competency level of the adult learners in his study but limited his research effort to describe the characteristics of the test items used and selected the best items which were used in this study. Though there are inconsistencies in the way competence is measured, generally competence is the ability to perform the requisite range of skills in pract

FAQs

What does the study evaluate about non-formal education learners in Nigeria?

It evaluates learners' competency in life skills through a life-skills achievement test.

How many learners participated in the test?

The test was administered to a sample of 876 learners.

What main differences in competency were found among learners?

Most learners scored below the national benchmark; rural learners were more competent than urban learners, and younger learners were more competent than older learners.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Aldword