According to the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF, 70 per cent of 10 year old children in Nigeria cannot read and write. In this piece, JOYCE REMI-BABAYEJU examines the consequences of this disturbing report on literacy crisis on the next generation of Nigerians. The fear, she says, is that they may end up as illiterates, even as the nation slides into foundational and numeracy crisis.
Amina Umaru is a 10 year old innocent looking-girl who said she is a primary six pupil at Tunga Maje Primary School in Abuja. But her physical appearance looks like a 7 year old.
Surprisingly, Amina who constantly giggles when answering simple questions barely understands English language. She told this our correspondent that she looks forward to going to a Secondary School if her parents permit her. Amina is among the 70% of Nigeria school children who cannot read or write in Nigeria.
The United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF, has alerted the government of Nigeria that over 70 per cent of 10 year old children who are in school are lacking the foundational literacy and numeracy knowledge. This means that these segment of school children cannot read and write, which is the basic means of education.
The 70 % of school children who lack learning skills, in addition to the 10.5 million children out of school children, already puts Nigeria in a staggering educational
mess as a result of the nation’s preventable unresponsive educational systems. Consequently, it is doubtful if Nigeria will achieve the Sustainable development Goals, SDGs 4, and indeed all the SDGs.
The figures of out of school children and the teeming number of children in classrooms who cannot read and write puts Nigerian on the verge of losing its next generation of leaders, professionals, politicians, technocrats and the likes out of the global committee of developed nations.
Owing to the staggering learning crisis in Nigeria, the country in the near future may not be able to produce the needed and prerequisite manpower to wheel the country to the desired global destination through achievements of SDGs.
If this crisis is not urgently addressed, it becomes further bleak for the next leaders as they may be bereft of required knowledge to manage the country and it’s resources. The hidden fear, UNICEF states, is that Nigeria is facing a staggering learning crisis with the lowest learning outcomes globally.
As a matter of urgency, government should stand up to priotrize education at the foundational level, that is both at the pre- primary and primary levels by stepping up the educational system by training teachers, quality school curriculum, good learning environment, pre- school learning among other requirements for a good foundational learning.
Experts agree that without the ratification and domestication of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, UN CRC, achieving the SDGs on quality education for all children and indeed all SDGs becomes a mirage and rhetorical in the agenda of the nation.
The CRC is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights of children. Nigeria as a signatory to the CRC is still found wanting in providing basic education which is a prerequisite for individual and national development.
A whooping number of Nigerian children of school age are presently submerged in the miry clay of incompetent educational system, which will equally produce an incompetent population of adults in the near future.
According to Dr. Chidi Ezinwa of the Department of Mass Communication, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, speaking on the SGGs as Child Rights, “SDGs is about human rights and it will remain a mirage until the rights of children are fulfilled.”
Ezinwa noted that children not going to school is a denial of their human right, as well as denial of health care, girl circumcision, child marriage among others. While differentiating children from adult, he emphasized that until an individual is 18, he or she is still a child, adding that childhood period is a special protection time when they must go to school, must be allowed to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity.
Ezinwa sounded a note of warning on duty bearers, that parents and care givers should be made to face the risk of going to jail and be sanctioned for not enrolling their children in school, noting that no child should be left behind. According to him, the quality of children we have today determines the quality of adults tomorrow.
The SDG 4 hinges on quality education for children. Child education is a prerequisite to achieving the SDG. No county can achieve the 16 SDGs without the Child Rights and clearly Nigeria seems far from achieving these development goals.
This sloppy trend of Nigerian’s educational system can only be linked to the loose thread of not only on bad policies on education but on poor implementation of such policies.
At a 2-Day Media Dialogue on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy , FLN, on SDGs as Child Rights organized by UNICEF in collaboration with the Child Rights Information Bureau, CRIB, of the Ministry of Information and Culture in Kano, the UNICEF Officer- in – Charge, OIC, UNICEF Field Office in Kano , Elhadji Issakha Diop noted that it is presently in learning crisis with over 10.5 million children out of school with an additional 70% of 10 year children in school who do not know how to read and write.
Diop who was represented by Rahana Mohammed Farah at UNICEF Kano Office said that, it is worrisome that 70% of 10 year old primary school children cannot read and write because of the denial of literacy and numeracy of children in Nigeria.
According to Diop, Nigeria is one of the Sub- Saharan African countries facing learning crisis in which learning is not taking place, even for children that are in school. He emphasized that part of the rights of children is education of the child, but children are being denied the basics of education.
Speaking on the state of Nigerian’s foundational education, Diop commented, “Talking about children’s rights, education is one of such rights. Education is a fundamental human right, and that right is well-articulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the (CRC) which guides the work of UNICEF, and of course, in other legal instruments, including the Nigerian Constitution.”
To address the challenge, he said, “achieving basic learning outcomes at the foundational level of education is key, adding that to improve learning outcomes in Nigeria, achieving basic foundational skills at that level of learning cannot be overemphasized.
In a zoom presentation on Scaling Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in Nigeria by Manar Ahmed Sharouda, UNICEF Education Specialist, said that Foundational Literacy and Numeracy is very important for education in Nigeria.
According to Sharouda, in Nigeria, 87 % of children do not have basic literacy which means that Nigeria is facing a staggering learning crisis with learning outcomes being the lowest globally. Over 70 per cent of children have not gained Foundational literacy.
“All our children should be able to read and write and do simple mathematics operation.”
The Education Specialist said that Nigeria seriously needs to close this gap of backwardness in it’s educational system.
UNICEF however said that Nigeria could retrace it’s steps from falling completely into the doldrum of learning disaster. It needs to operate an inclusive quality education for all children for SDG 4 to be achieved by 2030.
According to UNICEF, Nigeria needs to commit huge investment into its education sector in the area of training of teachers, in time, financial and institutionally. Sharouda said Nigeria should embark on the compulsory FLN Roadmap for preventive measures such as early learning and improved school readiness for children from 3 to 5 years, which is the pre – primary learning stage.
Improved teaching and learning practice and materials with specific focus on the lower primary P 1-3 system strengthening.
Sharouda in her presentation said, “70 percent of school children in Nigeria within the ages of 3-10 years lack basic Numeracy skills linking the causes to economic constraints, infrastructural provisions, policy implementation among other factors.”
She further attributed the problem of learning crisis to factors low public spending on education, inadequate and unprepared workforce of qualified teachers which are in short supply; that is 69% of teachers are not qualified, insufficient physical resources and low school readiness, as 10 million children aged 3-5 are not enrolled in ECOD services.
UNICEF said that in Sub- Saharan Africa , 87% of children are in learning crisis as they do not have basic literacy and that globally 53% of 10 year olds in low-income income countries like Nigeria cannot read or understand a simple story.
There is therefore an urgent need for Nigeria to gird it’s loins by putting both infrastructure and super structures in place to close the gap on FLN programmes for the next population adults who would, in the near future, control the affairs of the nation.
Like the computer, your input determines your output and outcomes. To achieve all the SDGs , Nigeria must step up it’s game on quality and inclusive education that would absorb the outstanding 10.5 million out of school children. Similarly, there is a need to jack up educational methods for a sustainable educational system using the UNICEF guidelines.
