Political bargaining, religion, and educational development: The Nigerian experience from the takeover of schools from christian missions

Formal Western education in Nigeria was initiated by various Christian missionaries in 1842, and they continued to dominate the education system after independence in 1960. In a bid to reshape the education system, the military government centralised education management and outlawed missionary and other private school ownership in the 1970s following a civil war. Focusing on this forceful takeover of schools from religious bodies, this paper discusses how the takeover contributed to shaping the future of the Nigerian education system, including impacts on access and quality education and stakeholders’ perceptions of the changes. The paper uses data collected from 2617 individuals who discussed their experiences of the changes as parents, students, teachers, head-teachers, principals, and administrators in the education sector between 1970 and 2003. Findings reveal that the military government's takeover of Christian Missionary schools encouraged parents in Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria to enrol their children in school. At the same time, respondents revealed that the expansion of access negatively affected the quality of education. The perceived impacts of these changes vary across ethno-religious groups, which is a manifestation of the political bargaining strategies adopted by the government. We discuss some implications of these findings for education systems in other developing countries.