This case study seeks to understand how the Lagos Eko
Secondary Education Project (Eko Project) in Nigeria
tailored international best practices to leverage impact
through education sector reforms in Lagos State’s public
secondary school system. As the economic center
of Nigeria and a financial powerhouse in West Africa,
Lagos State has benefited from significant education
sector reforms initiated by reform-minded state officials.
Demand for education has always been high in the state,
but for many years the quality of secondary schools
lagged behind. Infrastructure deficiencies, shortages in
learning materials, and scarce opportunities for teachers’
professional development compounded these problems.
In this context, a new governor took office in 2007,
on a platform that placed education sector reforms at
the top of the agenda. The governor recruited a topnotch
program coordinator and sought the World Bank’s
support to design and launch the Lagos Eko Secondary
Education Project in 2009. Drawing on international
best practices, the project set out to support improved
learning outcomes through school development grants,
performance-based incentives for schools, public-private
partnerships for technical colleges, teacher training and
mentoring, and more reliable performance measurement
through improved standardized testing of learning
achievement. The Eko Project, which is set to close in
June 2016, has worked steadfastly toward achieving its
development objective of improving the quality of public
junior and senior secondary education in Lagos State,
despite a significant drop in test scores in 2014—a setback
that accentuated a national-level trend.