AN OVERVIEW OF NOMADIC EDUCATION POLICIES IN NIGERIA, 1996-2008

During the past four decades, there has been an increased involvement of the federal government of Nigeria on the nomadic education programme. The rationale for the government’s participation was to integrate the nomads into the mainstream of the Nigerian society. This objective is far from being accomplished considering the incessant conflicts between the host farmers and nomadic pastoralist which resulted in loss of lives and properties in recent times. However, the perceived deplorable situation in which the nomads faced compelled the federal military government in Nigeria to initiate and establish nomadic education programme for the training of nomadic population. This paper is out to examine the lack of consensus on the conceptualisation of ‘nomads’ within the global and Nigeria context and led to rest the appropriateness of the meaning of nomads. Furthermore, efforts were geared towards examining different nomadic education polices enacted between 1996 and 2008. The paper is qualitative in nature. Six participants and documentary evidence were the two major sources of data generation. In line with qualitative research approach, content analysis was adopted to analyse the data. Findings indicated that nomads can be conceptualised as group of people that migrate orderly, logically, systematically and purposefully from one particular geographical location to the other in search of their means of livelihood. Secondly, it was established that nomadic education boarding policy of 1996, universal basic education policy of 2004, nomadic girl-child education policy of 2006 andradio education policy of 2008 were some of the policies enacted for the smooth implementation of nomadic education programme in Nigeria