Out of School Kids: Bitter territory

The Federal Government says that there are about 15 million out of school children in Nigeria. That is a crisis. It means that we have crossed into the bitter territory of growing illiteracy. Boko Haram folks who are the preachers of pessimism are probably happy with this unhappy news. Why? Because they think that western education is rubbish eventhough they use guns that are the products of western education. But this figure, high as it is, is considered inaccurate. UNICEF puts the figure at 18.3 million children that are roaming the streets or sitting at home without getting the benefit of education. Some others think that the figure is probably above 20 million. There is no mathematical exactitude to these figures since an accurate census of such children is very difficult to calculate. But whatever figure you choose to accept you must also accept that we have a crisis of enormous proportion on our plate as a nation. It means that we have a severe crack in the wall of our education. That is why this lizard is able to enter there. This crisis is the equivalent of serious wounds that need multiple stitches to get healing. About 66% of these children are found in the North West and North East zones that are already many kilometres behind other zones in education. Over 50% of them are girls while 86% of them live in rural areas.

We are not alone in this dark territory. UNESCO says that there about 272 million children around the world that are out of school. Such countries as Pakistan, India, Mali, Sudan and Somalia are in the same dark tunnel as Nigeria. If this information offers you comfort since we are not alone, it is simply cold comfort, cold comfort because Nigeria’s figure is 4.5% of the global total, cold comfort because one out of every five out of school children is a Nigerian. That is a bomb waiting to explode, a time bomb. And how much time do we have before it explodes? I don’t know.

To win a reprieve from this trip to illiteracy we must tackle the root causes. In some parts of Nigeria, especially the North West and North East there is very limited interest in western education. Instead, the educated persons and one or two state governments prefer to bankroll marriage ceremonies for young people instead of sending them to school. If that is their strategy to make their young people perpetual hewers of wood and drawers of water, it is a perfect strategy. But it is a policy that is pregnant with trouble because illiteracy is the worst type of poison to inject into any society. Some of them who want education for their children want only Koranic education, not western education. Others only prefer to send their male children to school while they send their female children into marriage, early marriage. What follows is stagnation, poverty, suffering, hardship, hunger, depression and a life of vegetation. Some of them attribute this attitude to religion or tradition or culture. Just the way sunshine and shadow go together, illiteracy and hardship also go together, and stay together like Siamese twins. It is said that culture without reason is but an ancient error. Some of the people who have some interest in sending their children to school are poor and cannot afford the cost of education today. So they leave their children to roam the streets to sell pure water (which is not pure) or to simply beg strangers for money with which to buy food. This is happening in many towns in Nigeria today.

In many communities in the North West and North East there are very limited facilities and infrastructure for education especially in the rural areas. That situation is a disincentive to education in an area where in the first place young people needed to be persuaded to go to school. So insecurity has now become a growth industry which fetches millions of naira for those who practise it. The danger here is that as insecurity spreads so will education shrink. There are two options here (a) Send your children to school and risk their being kidnapped for ransom or (b) keep your children at home and risk their being illiterate. None of the two options is good enough for anybody, children, parents, Nigeria. God is the one that gives people children but it is the parents that decide what they want their children to be. Many parents feel unable to take the right decisions for their children’s future in the circumstances in which they find themselves today. They may find that their children have ability but their ability is of little account without the opportunity to go to school. So many of the parents just decide to stay there on the ground getting consolation from the fact that they cannot go lower than the ground on which they stay. Today, the cruel man in our midst is the kidnapper and no one can get the cruel man to listen to reason because money is his mission. Reason and greed are not compatriots. That is why kidnapping thrives.

The Federal Government and some state governments are making significant investments in education. The Federal Ministry of Education is doing community-level mapping as well as implementing school re-integration programme. By these efforts they are trying to locate where the out-of-school children are and why they are out of school. These measures will provide a compass for the way forward. But both the Federal and State Governments must make more massive investments in education than hitherto. The UNESCO is asking countries to allocate at least four to 6% of their GDP and at least 15 to 20% of their total public expenditure to education.

Over the years, several bricks have been removed from the architecture of education in Nigeria. That has deprived education in Nigeria of the solidity that it had in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Today, many employers of labour do not rate tertiary education in Nigeria highly. They ask potential employees to come for interview with two or three degrees for entry level jobs. They think that if these two or three degrees are put together they will amount to one solid degree. That means that the views of these employers about Nigeria’s education have darkened. Something drastic needs to be done by both Federal and State Governments to bring our education to the happy shores of excellence. They must invest more in education infrastructure, improve the pay packets of teachers, build institutional capacity, get parents and alumni associations to get more involved in education.

Yes, the introduction of NELFUND is a very innovative formula for solving the problem of indigent students. The Federal Government deserves commendation for this. However, I believe that Nigeria should aim at having free education from primary to secondary school while tuition should be free in tertiary institutions. Nigeria cannot make much progress in development except there is a substantial improvement in education throughout the country. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the one who spread the bright flame of free education in the Western Region. That is why that region is many kilometres ahead of other regions today. He was not a magician. The only magic wand he used was education because he knew that education is the key to progress and prosperity. Why can’t we follow in his footsteps today?