The National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools has expressed concern over the failure of state governments to domesticate the National Policy on Non-State Schools one year after its launch, warning that weak political commitment is slowing reforms aimed at improving the quality and accessibility of education.

The National President of NAPPS, Yomi Otubela, said that although the policy was a commendable initiative by the federal government, its objectives would remain unrealised unless states took deliberate steps to adopt and implement it.

The FG launched the National Policy on Non-State Schools on July 16, 2025, to provide a framework for regulating and supporting private, faith-based, community and other non-state schools across the country.

Speaking with The PUNCH on Thursday about the slow pace of implementation, Otubela said the policy recognised the indispensable role of non-state schools in expanding access to quality education and complementing government efforts.

“The policy itself was not fundamentally misplaced; rather, the challenge has been translating its objectives into concrete action at the state level,” he said.

According to him, stronger political commitment by state governments is critical because education falls under the Concurrent Legislative List.

“Without deliberate commitment from state governments, national policies will remain largely aspirational,” he said.

Otubela also called for sustained engagement with private school proprietors, state chapters of NAPPS, education regulators, parents and development partners to ensure successful domestication of the policy.

He urged governments to provide clear implementation guidelines, timelines and accountability mechanisms to guide states while preserving the core objectives of the national framework.

The NAPPS president further calls for a shift from regulation to partnership, concessionary financing, reduced multiple taxation, capacity-building programmes and greater inclusion of private schools in government interventions.

“Private schools should be partners in national development, not merely as entities to be regulated,” he said.

Also speaking, the Director of Programme Quality and Influencing at Plan International, Helen Idiong, described the policy as a necessary response to the growing role of non-state schools in educating millions of Nigerian children.

She, however, noted that implementation was slowed by competing priorities and weak political will at the state level.

“The bigger challenge, like in most policies in Nigeria, is implementation, especially at the state level. Most states are dealing with competing priorities and have low political will to implement or even domesticate it,” she said.

Idiong urged states to develop clear implementation roadmaps, strengthen stakeholder engagement and balance regulation with support to improve quality, safety, inclusion and learning outcomes.

She added that the success of the policy should be measured not by the number of states that domesticate it but by its impact on children’s learning, protection and access to quality education.

An education quality assurance consultant, Eliara Education Consulting, Funmilayo Awoniyi, also attributed the slow pace of domestication to weak state ownership, inadequate implementation capacity and limited awareness of the policy.

She noted that although some states, including Lagos, Edo and Nasarawa, had begun preliminary consultations, none had completed full legal domestication with gazetting and enforceable implementation structures.

Awoniyi said many educators and school proprietors remained unaware of the policy because it had yet to be fully communicated and adopted at the state level.

She identified inadequate funding, weak quality assurance systems, poor education management information system infrastructure and mistrust between governments and non-state school operators as key barriers to implementation.

Awoniyi urged state governments to adopt a partnership approach by engaging NAPPS, faith-based school networks and civil society organisations while strengthening quality assurance institutions and implementation capacity.