About
Basic Education
The Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria is a 7-year programme funded by FCDO, which intends to enable a more inclusive and effective basic education system in Nigeria. It seeks to do this through improvements in teaching and learning with focus on foundational skills; through unlocking governance bottlenecks for better education service delivery; through improvements in the regulation of the nonstate sector and through embedding the use of data and evidence within the education system
Challenge
The project will directly support an estimate of 1.5 million children in the three northern states Kano, Kaduna and Jigawa. Without access to high-quality, age-appropriate teaching and learning materials (TLMs), the percentage of students mastering foundational skills will remain low. Access to quality TLMs is alarming in these states, some schools have not received any new curriculum appropriate textbooks in over three years, and supplementary reading books are scarce in every school.
Method
PLANE has commissioned BlueTree Group to map out the status of book supply chain management (BSCM) in Nigeria, identify its strengths and weaknesses in each of the phases and provide recommendations to build a durable and innovative supply chain in Nigeria.
During this analysis, BlueTree Group has identified all the important stakeholders within the publishing, printing and distribution of textbooks and supplementary reading books in Nigeria in general and the three states Kano, Jigawa and Kaduna.
Key stakeholders included publishers, printers, distributors, booksellers, government officials, NGO’s and stakeholders within the production of books for children with special needs, including authors and braille production centres. These stakeholders have been identified during desk research and have been interviewed during in-country visits.
During the implementation phase, BlueTree Group will provide technical assistance in the book procurement and conduct quality controls during the printing and production of textbooks and supplementary reading books in Nigeria.
Results
The comprehensive Book Supply Chain Analysis and development of the National Book Policy by BlueTree Group have sparked discussions among stakeholders to improve the book chain in Nigeria. These discussions were facilitated over a week of workshops with different stakeholders on topics such as improvement in the printing industry, policies supporting the different actors of the book chain, advocacy on the elimination of taxes and duties on printing raw materials, and the roles and responsibilities of stakeholder groups in the book chain. BlueTree Group has successfully executed book procurement, pick and pack operations, and overseen the distribution of the focus states of the project. Currently, the procurement for the upcoming academic year is underway.