Educating Nigeria's poorest: A radical plan to attract private sector investment

Abstract

Despite its recent economic successes, Nigeria still has a vast underclass where children either do not go toschool or, if they did, they are forced to drop out early. In this brief paper, the study outline a new model toattract private sector investment into the education of Nigeria's poorest and most vulnerable children who,on present evidence, are unlikely to make their way out of the poverty trap anytime soon. The idea isradical but at its core the plan is simple and may be summed up thus: The private sector will be invited toset up schools and educational institutions for our poorest and most disadvantaged children in return for anincentive never tried out before. As and when these children grow up and start earning their livelihood, theincome tax paid by them to the central government over their life-time would be passed on to the entity thatnurtured and educated them.The financial viability of the model for Nigerian conditions was consideredby Oluwole Adelokun, a management consultant with KPMG Company. His conclusions form an integralpart of this paper.

Keywords: Education, poverty, private sector, investment, financial viability.