AS Nigeria steps into 2026, two sectors central to the quality of life in any country—education and health—still stand on shaky ground.
Vice-President Kashim Shettima reinforced this truism when he declared, “No investment in education is ever a gamble; it is a conscious plan for a better, more secure future,” in his speech at the 2025 convocation ceremonies of the Kashim Ibrahim University in Borno State.
Indeed, education is a key to a secure future, but despite the government’s efforts towards implementing reforms in curriculum, digital skills and infrastructure, recent statistics show Nigeria’s education system faces huge challenges, with 18 million out-of-school children.
There are also low literacy rates (around 77.6 per cent in 2021), poor learning outcomes (75 per cent of seven to 14-year-olds lack basic skills), and major gaps in access, quality, and funding, exacerbated by insecurity, especially in the North, according to UNICEF and NBS.
It is worth noting that President Bola Tinubu’s 2026 budget proposal showed that N3.52 trillion was allocated to the education sector.
While this represents an increase compared to some previous years, it still falls far short of the UNESCO recommendation that countries allocate at least 15–20 per cent of their national budgets to education.
In the First Republic, the Obafemi Awolowo administration allocated between 30 and 40 per cent to education.
Frequent strikes by lecturers and non-academic staff have normalised disruption, eroding confidence in public education.
Students, uncertain of graduation timelines, are forced into prolonged academic journeys, while parents who can afford it increasingly turn to private institutions or overseas schools, deepening inequality.
When placed alongside the persistent crises in the health sector, the New Year raises hard questions about governance, priorities, and the true cost of broken promises.
While the CBN reported that Nigeria’s medical tourism outflows crashed 96.2 per cent year-on-year to $0.09 million from $2.38 million between January and June 2025, due to tighter FX controls and increased availability of high-end facilities, the overall medical care deficit continues to exact a heavy toll.
Medical tourism outflows outside official channels suggest numbers ranging from $1.5 billion to $2 billion annually, while the government’s facilities remain starved of resources, including personnel, laboratories, imaging equipment and critical care. Workers are treated with disdain, with welfare demands largely ignored.
Last week’s declaration by the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors that it may resume industrial action from January 12, under the banner “No Implementation, No Going Back,” underscores a familiar but unresolved pattern.NARD says the Federal Government has failed to honour a Memorandum of Understanding earlier signed to address doctors’ welfare. Medical workers under JOHESU have been on strike for over two months for similar reasons.
Planned nationwide protests and centre-based demonstrations across hospitals suggest that the sector is once again bracing for paralysis.
Nigeria’s health sector has long been caught in a cycle of neglect, emergency negotiations, and temporary reprieves. This must stop.
Recently, doctors under the banner of the Nigeria Medical Association and NARD listed the full implementation of existing health policies as the most critical step the Tinubu-led administration must take to prevent recurrent industrial crisis in the health sector in 2026.
Though the Federal Government allocated N50 billion to settle outstanding arrears for health workers in November, the doctors said the intervention did not cover the arrears owed, as the fund was for all health workers and not doctors alone.
Doctors and other health workers in Nigeria routinely raise issues of unpaid allowances, poor working conditions, manpower shortages, and decaying infrastructure. Governments, federal and state, in turn, typically respond with promises that are either partially implemented or abandoned altogether.
Yet, governments find funds for luxury SUVs, white elephants, needless travel and other fripperies.
As with healthcare, the outlook on education for 2026 is unsettling. What links the crises in health and education is not merely funding, but credibility.
Agreements are signed, committees inaugurated, and deadlines announced—only for implementation to falter. This erosion of trust between the government and professionals has reduced attempts at dialogue to confrontational ordeals.
In 2026, Nigeria cannot afford situations where hospitals shut their doors and classrooms fall silent while policymakers trade blame. Politics must not sidetrack federal and state governments’ obligations to social services. Decisive action must be taken to steer education and healthcare in the right direction.
There should be a shift from crisis management to long-term planning. Preventing another doctors’ strike or an education shutdown requires more than last-minute negotiations. It demands deliberate budgeting, transparent timelines, and political will to implement agreements.
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