Who works with the Ministry

Partner financing is a substantial part of what the sector spends, but it is not a parallel education system. Each partner works inside the State education sector plan, against targets the Ministry has set, through the boards that already manage the schools concerned. A partner-financed classroom is built by the Education Development Support Board like any other; a partner-financed teacher training runs through the Directorate of Teacher Development; a partner-financed scholarship is paid to a learner on the State student record.

The Ministry keeps a single register of partner commitments, so that the same school is not counted twice by two programmes and so that a commitment made in one year can be checked against what was delivered in the next. The register, the memoranda of understanding and the annual reconciliation are published on this site.

Nothing is spent on the strength of a press announcement. A partnership begins with a memorandum of understanding signed by the Honourable Commissioner, which names the programme, the target, the term, the value, the counterpart contribution the State must find, and the board that will execute it. The memorandum is registered by the Directorate of Planning, Research and Statistics and entered in the sector plan before a single naira moves.

Execution runs through the Ministry's own controls: procurement under the State public procurement law, payment certificates signed by the executing board and countersigned by the Directorate of Finance and Accounts, and physical verification by the inspectorate before a project is accepted. Partner-financed projects appear in the same published project list as State-financed ones, with contractor, value and percentage completion.

Reporting is on a fixed cycle. Each partner receives a quarterly progress report; the State publishes an annual reconciliation of what was committed, what was received, what was spent and what was built, in the annual report of the sector. Where a commitment has not been drawn down, the reason is stated rather than the line quietly dropped.