The Federal Government and the World Bank have restructured the $500 million HOPE for Quality Basic Education for All programme, reducing funding allocations for new classroom construction while expanding the number of states benefiting from targeted interventions.
Details of the restructuring were contained in a World Bank document dated May 20, 2026, obtained from the bank’s website.
According to the report, the changes followed a major reduction in Nigeria’s Global Partnership for Education, GPE, System Transformation Grant allocation, which was cut from $107.59 million to $53.975 million.
The World Bank explained that the revised arrangement now places the entire reduced GPE funding under the World Bank-managed HOPE-Education programme, instead of the earlier structure shared with the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
“Originally, the World Bank and UNICEF were selected to manage half of the initial funding allocation each. However, with the reduced financing, the Federal Government proposed that the entire allocation be managed through HOPE-Education,” the report stated.
The HOPE-Education programme, approved in March 2025, is funded through a $500 million International Development Association credit and a $52.18 million GPE grant.
The restructuring paper showed that funding for the creation of 13,000 new classrooms under DLI 4 was reduced from $5.7 million to $2.55 million.
The allocation for government-community agreements supporting classroom construction in 15 states dropped from $500,000 to $300,000, while direct funding for constructing the classrooms was cut from $5.2 million to $2.25 million.
Despite the reduction, the target of building 13,000 classrooms remains unchanged.
The World Bank noted that there would be no change to the programme’s objectives, institutional arrangements or closing date.
Under the revised arrangement, the number of states eligible for targeted interventions increased from three to six with the inclusion of Abia, Bauchi and Kwara states.
The updated GPE-supported states are now Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Kebbi, Kwara and Lagos.
The restructuring also adjusted funding allocations across several education indicators, including teaching materials, teacher mentoring, literacy assessments, school grants and annual school census reporting.
Under DLI 1, new allocations of $7.419 million and $3.569 million were introduced to improve access to teaching and learning materials in public primary schools across GPE-supported states.
Funding under DLI 2 for improving teaching practices was reduced from $14.866 million to $12.664 million, while allocations for literacy and numeracy under DLI 3 dropped from $7.934 million to $5.06 million.
Funding linked to out-of-school children under DLI 5 also declined from $1.733 million to $1.283 million.
However, allocations for annual school grants under DLI 7 increased from $4.73 million to $7.865 million, while annual school census reporting under DLI 8 rose from $4.45 million to $5.676 million.
The World Bank said the programme aims to improve foundational learning outcomes, expand access to basic education and strengthen education systems in participating states.
The programme became effective on February 26, 2026, with the bank noting that implementation is already showing early progress.
