Nigeria is emerging through a turbulent period in its history, which clearly indicates the need to use education to advance tolerance and understanding amongst religious and different ethnic groups as well as advance the cause of girls rights. The operations of the educational system is centrally controlled with tremendous power vested in the Federal Education Officials to interpret and direct the process of education policy implementation at the basic education level. The basic education board office is accountable for the provision of access for all children of school age to basic education and to assure quality. The establishment of local School Boards Management Committees (SBMC) at the schools’ level has brought the school communities closer to the schools through their participation in school administration committees. However, the appointment of community members to SBMC is not based on appropriate skills but solely on members being both parents and having the ability to work within their communities to ensure that more children are enrolled in school. The UBEB are succeeding in addressing the issue of access to basic education, and are in a strong position to lead curriculum trans-formation to support the advancement of a ‘free and democratic society’ and educational success of boys and girls. The work of the SBMC and the UBEB is in the context of equal opportunities for all citizens in line with the objectives of the national policy on education (Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN), 2004). Three research questions guide the study: (1) How do Federal Education Officers and UBEB officials describe and understand their interplay with policy, and the governance systems that empowers or disempowers them to raise the cultural relevancy of the curriculum for all? (2) How do they describe and understand the role advocates play when they negotiate the governance structures? (3) To what extent do Federal Education Officials believe a cultural change is required to empower the UBEB to work for social justice, equity, peace, and renewal within existing governance structures? The research design is a case study collecting narrative biographies of 20 education officials at the federal and board levels using semi-structured interviews (Denscombe 2007). Data collection is in progress and will be anlaysed and organized by categories (Creswell, 2009) that will be read through Gross (2014) Turbulence Theory.

Creswell, J.W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed-Methods Approaches. London: Sage. Denscombe, M. (2007) The Good Research Guide for Small Scale Research Projects. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Federal Republic of Nigeria, (FRN), (2004). National Policy on Education. Lagos: NERDC Press. Gross, S.J. (2014) Using turbulence theory to guide actions. In Branson, C.M., Gross, S.J. (Eds.) Handbook on Ethical Educational Leadership. New York: Routledge. Pp. 246-262.