Before sunrise, 12-year-old Basirat Adeleke sets out from Olubadan, a cluster of mud houses tucked behind the forest belt of Oluyole Local Government. With two exercise books wrapped in a torn black nylon bag, she treks almost four kilometres to the community school at Olunde.
When rain falls, water leaks freely through the perforated zinc roofing of her classroom, with cracked walls, turning the floors into muddy pools. On very hot days, the poorly ventilated classroom traps suffocating heat, and there are no fans. Due to this infrastructural gap, Basirat does not attend school everyday, gradually limiting her potential to study to become a nurse.
Basirat’s experience reflects a wider gap between increased education spending and conditions in rural schools.
Rising budgets, uneven outcomes
An analysis of Oyo State budget data between 2016 and 2025 shows a sharp increase in education spending. Education allocation rose from ₦6.1 billion in 2016 (5.5%) to ₦145.35 billion in 2025 (21.44%), with the sector consistently receiving around 20 per cent of the total budget since 2020.
Overall, the state allocated about ₦459 billion to education within the decade. However, field visits by this reporter to rural schools in Oluyole and surrounding areas show that infrastructure gaps, teacher shortages and access challenges persist despite the increase.
Although basic education funding has been channelled through UBEC and the World Bank-supported BESDA programme, public data do not make clear how the resources are shared between urban and rural communities.
Learning under strain
In Ifelodun Community Grammar School, pupils learn in unconducive classrooms. Half of the ceilings are missing. Windows are gone as well. During rainfall, classes end abruptly as water floods the floors.
Ifelodun Community Grammar School
“We don’t have enough classrooms. When it rains, we close early. Government officials only inspect the schools near the main road, they never come inside here,” says a teacher under anonymity.
At St. Martins Catholic Basic School, the lack of teachers, in addition to the dilapidated classrooms, is also a major problem that continues to affect the learning conditions of the pupils.
“We have very few teachers for too many pupils. One teacher sometimes handles two classes or more. Furniture is scarce; cracked walls vibrate when the wind blows,” a teacher explained.
It was also gathered that the former headteacher of the school reportedly stopped coming two years ago. Since then, no one has replaced him. Attendance rates drop every market day; some classes see fewer than five pupils on some days.
“If teachers are not enough and classrooms are broken, what is the motivation for a child? We are begging the government to remember us,” Gbemileke Adebayo, a parent, told this reporter.
Another school, Aba’gbo Community Primary School serves more than ten farming communities, including Olubadan, Onikoko, Aba’Agbo and Elewura. Yet the school has fewer than four usable classrooms.
With facilities left to deteriorate, some community members have resorted to repurposing abandoned school furniture as firewood or for home repairs, as they say the materials were no longer in use.
Access remains a barrier
Distance remains a major factor affecting school attendance in many rural communities. In several locations visited, pupils travel between 7 and 10 kilometres daily. Some villages have no junior secondary school within the radius. This contributes to irregular attendance, dropouts after primary school, and Oyo State’s already large figure of out-of-school children, which stands at 20.9%, doubling the national average.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that Oyo State has 227,842 out-of-school children, one of the highest in the South-West. Field observations also show school-age children engaged in informal activities during school hours in parts of Ibadan.
A 2024 study projected that Oyo State’s rural learning gap may expand threefold by 2030 if urgent action is not taken by the government. The implication, if this is not addressed, is a looming generational crisis, where thousands of under-educated rural children join the unskilled population.
A 2024 analysis of Oyo State school-age population shows that the state has over 3.3 million children (3–17 years) sharing just 5,313 functional schools. They are most concentrated in Ibadan and semi-urban hubs. Rural LCDAs remain dangerously underserved.
Kareem Lateef, a lecturer at the Federal College of Education, Oyo, while reacting to the findings of this report said that “Equity, not expansion, is Oyo’s real problem. If you build a hundred schools and none reaches the most deprived communities, you have solved nothing.”
Also, an education policy expert, Mr Ayo Makanjuola who previously worked with the Oyo State government said reforms often fail at the implementation stage.
“Increased funding does not automatically translate to equitable access,” the expert said. “Without deliberate targeting of rural communities, reforms will continue to benefit urban centres disproportionately.”
Similarly, a senior lecturer in education management department at the University of Ibadan, Dr Yemi Adebayo warned that the long-term implications could extend beyond the classroom.
“What we are seeing is the gradual institutionalisation of inequality,” the lecturer said. “Rural children are being structurally excluded from quality education, and that has economic consequences for the future.”
Global data supports these concerns. According to the World Bank and UNICEF, Nigeria still has over 10 million out-of-school children, with rural access remaining one of the most significant barriers to education.
Government Response
The Executive Chairman of the Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Nureni Aderemi Adeniran, acknowledged infrastructure challenges across the state. “We have over 2,500 public primary schools in Oyo State. Addressing infrastructure gaps across all of them at the same time is not easy,” he said.
The Education Secretary of Oluyole Local Government, Ganiyu Adesina, also confirmed that interventions were ongoing. She noted that over 200 teachers, and schools with the greatest shortages are prioritised whenever new postings are approved.
Meanwhile, other government officials that spoke with this reporter insisted that reforms are underway. But across rural Oyo State, unfortunately, many pupils still walk long distances to school, study in leaking classrooms, and face teacher shortages. Until education investments deliberately prioritise remote communities through targeted infrastructure, teacher incentives and transparent project tracking, rural pupils will remain disadvantaged.
For children like Basirat Adeleke, the journey to school remains not just a daily walk, but a long struggle toward a better future.
This report was facilitated by DevReporting in partnership with Education As a Vaccine (EVA) and supported by the Malala Fund.
