The Federal Government and the World Bank have restructured the $500m HOPE for Quality Basic Education for All programme, reducing funding allocations originally tied to classroom construction while expanding intervention coverage to more states across the country.
Details contained in a World Bank restructuring paper dated May 20, 2026, revealed that the changes followed a major reduction in Nigeria’s grant allocation from the Global Partnership for Education, a development that has raised fresh concerns over the future of critical infrastructure projects in the nation’s basic education sector.
According to the report obtained from the World Bank website on Thursday, the GPE System Transformation Grant initially allocated to Nigeria was slashed from $107.59m to $53.975m, forcing a significant review of the financing structure of the programme.
The bank explained that under the original arrangement, the GPE grant was expected to be jointly managed by the World Bank and the United Nations Children’s Fund. However, following the reduction in funding, the Federal Government proposed that the entire revised allocation should be managed solely through the World Bank-supervised HOPE-Education programme.
The restructuring document stated that one of the most affected components was the funding allocated to the construction of new classrooms under the programme’s Disbursement Linked Indicator 4.
Findings showed that allocations covering the creation of 13,000 new primary school classrooms through community participation were drastically reduced from $5.7m to $2.55m despite the government retaining the original classroom construction target.
Specifically, the allocation for government-community agreements supporting classroom projects in 15 states was reduced from $500,000 to $300,000, while the allocation directly linked to constructing the 13,000 classrooms dropped from $5.2m to $2.25m.
Despite the sharp funding cuts, the World Bank maintained that the overall target of creating 13,000 classrooms across participating states remained unchanged under the revised results framework.
The World Bank also clarified that the restructuring would not affect the programme’s development objectives, implementation structure, or closing date, describing the latest review as the first official restructuring of the operation since approval.
The HOPE-Education programme was approved by the World Bank Board on March 31, 2025, and is being financed through a $500m International Development Association credit alongside a $52.18m grant from the Global Partnership for Education.
Under the revised framework, the number of states eligible for targeted interventions under Results Area 1 increased from three to six with the inclusion of Abia, Bauchi, and Kwara States.
The newly updated list of GPE-supported states now includes Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Kebbi, Kwara, and Lagos States.
The restructuring also introduced major adjustments across several performance indicators involving teaching and learning materials, teacher mentoring, literacy assessments, school grants, and annual school census reporting.
Under Disbursement Linked Indicator 1, which focuses on improving the availability of teaching and learning materials, the World Bank introduced a new allocation of $7.419m to ensure that at least 80 per cent of public primary schools in participating states have adequate learning materials for pupils in Grades 1 to 3.
Another allocation of $3.569m was also introduced to support the provision of educational materials for pupils in Grades 4 to 6 across the benefiting states.
Similarly, funding under Disbursement Linked Indicator 2, which addresses structured pedagogy practices among teachers, was reduced from $14.866m to $12.664m after adjustments were made to some performance targets and one indicator was completely removed.
Allocations supporting literacy and numeracy proficiency under DLI 3 also declined significantly from $7.934m to $5.06m following the removal of a $3.9m performance target previously tied to improving literacy and numeracy outcomes in IDA-supported states.
Funding aimed at addressing out-of-school children under DLI 5 equally dropped from $1.733m to $1.283m, further highlighting the financial pressures affecting some aspects of the programme.
However, allocations tied to annual school grants recorded a notable increase from $4.73m to $7.865m, while support for annual school census reporting also rose from $4.45m to $5.676m under the revised arrangement.
The World Bank disclosed that the changes would require adjustments to verification protocols for GPE-supported states, although verification systems already existing for IDA-financed states would remain unchanged.
According to the report, the HOPE-Education programme is primarily designed to improve foundational learning outcomes, expand access to quality basic education, and strengthen education systems across participating states in Nigeria.
The programme officially became effective on February 26, 2026, with the World Bank noting that implementation had already begun yielding “early progress” despite the ongoing restructuring and funding adjustments.
