Datta, Vanita; (2023) Conflict, Constraints and Cohesion: Exploring the Intersecting Dynamics and Influences Shaping Education Provision in North-East Nigeria. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Vanita Datta Final Thesis December 2023.pdf - Submitted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 July 2025. Download (2MB)

Abstract

In Nigeria, the challenge of addressing the needs of 10.5 million out-of-school children is particularly felt in the north-east, where Boko Haram has targeted education stakeholders. The state-led retaliatory counterinsurgency enmeshed local communities in the conflict. Along with other impacts, education provision has been seriously compromised. This thesis argues that by encroaching on education provision in local contexts in north-east Nigeria, the conflict created a terrain of contestation and negotiation. In these circumstances, communities exercise agency by navigating multiple influences and leveraging education to pursue cohesion and peace. I adapt a counterinsurgency framework as an analytical tool to a) generate in-depth understanding of how conflict has shaped education provision in local contexts and b) critique tensions between education as a universal right and priorities of multiple actors which have undermined this right. I draw upon interviews with 36 participants and a critical review of the literature to highlight dynamics of those priorities, alignment and dissent in education provision and social cohesion by communities, state and Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria. The analysis reveals that overlapping contradictions and convergence of influences during conflict have wide repercussions: the state paying insufficient attention to education provision, stakeholders manipulating the educational domain and communities’ trust in the state diminishing. Relatedly, competing state, community, donor and other organizational interests have complicated educational recovery and reconstruction. Communities are challenged to prioritise education, given the evolving insecurity and poverty, and to leverage education for peacebuilding. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to educational marginalisation of the most disadvantaged in the region. This thesis offers policymakers, academics and practitioners’ insights in to stakeholders’ parochial interests and how these complicate local educational outcomes and efforts to achieve peace. Focusing on local priorities and partnering with communities in promoting these priorities may widen opportunities to sustain education provision and peace.

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