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Educating the Nigerian child
In
his recent official visit to Akwa Ibom State, President Olusegun Obasanjo made a
symbolic and touching gesture when he reached out a helping hand to an
illiterate 13-year- old boy, Udo.
The President’s convoy had stopped at Ikot
Ebekpo to allow him exchange pleasantries with the people of the state who had
gathered there to welcome him. The first citizen attempted to interact with the
boy who was in the company of his mother.
To the President’s shock, Udo could not
communicate with him in English and upon inquiry, he discovered that the boy had
not been able to school at all because the parents could not afford his school
fees. Touched by the boy’s plight, the President offered to adopt him and pay
for his formal education.
The President’s gesture, to say the least,
is commendable, given that if he had not reached out to poor Udo, the boy most
likely would have become condemned to a life of illiteracy, which would not have
allowed him to actualise whatever potentials that are locked up within him.
Commendable as the President’s gesture is,
however, it is evident that it amounts to a drop of water in a vast wasteland of
children who, presently, do not have access to formal education. There are,
indeed, millions of other Udos across the country with poor parents who are
facing the same bleak future that only recently was the lot of Udo and who may
never have the luck of meeting Mr. President in circumstances similar to Udo’s.
Without detracting from the full weight of
the President’s praiseworthy gesture, the reality of the enormity of the problem
of illiteracy that stares the nation in the face dictates that the country’s
education policy must be revisited, with the aim of defusing the timebomb.
The country cannot attain its full
potentials when a section of its populace, a sizeable proportion really, are
illiterate. Indeed, the illiterate population would continue to constitute a
grave danger to the entire polity and every effort must be made by governments
at all levels to ensure that children are not left to the vagaries of a society
that is in the firm grip of all forms of contradictions.
The country has toyed with different
education policies, most of these have so far failed to meet the needs of the
legion of Udos nationwide. Admitted that a significant percentage of children of
school age have the privilege of accessing formal education, the fact remains
that the many others that are, like Udo, shut out, must be allowed, through
conscious government policies, to become literate.
This means that such existing education
policy as the compulsory Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme must be
strengthened in such a way that every child of school age must, without
exception, be made to go to school, at least up to the junior secondary school
level.
We believe that the country can afford to
provide this level of education for her children, especially if areas of wastage
of government funds are blocked and a conscious effort is made to commit the
United Nations prescribed minimum of 26 per cent of annual budget to the
education sector. The great advantages of such investment need not be
emphasized.
With sufficient funds allocated to the
sector and proper policies put in place, it would be possible for every child of
school age to be reached wherever he is. Programmes to take literacy to nomadic
children, to children of fishermen who spend most of their time in the largely
inaccessible creeks and rivers as well as to children who have been lured into
the markets and other businesses by the promise of quick wealth, can more easily
be fashioned out and implemented.
Indeed, adult literacy programmes can then
also be intensified, so that the population that had the ill-luck of passing
through childhood without formal education can still have the good fortune of
accessing formal education, broadening their horizons and contributing more
meaningfully to the development of the country.
Governments at all levels must, indeed,
take the eye-opener called Udo as a wake up call and immediately rise to the
responsibility of providing the platform for educating the country’s children,
who represent the leaders of tomorrow. This is one matter that should be
transcend partisan politics.
More schools should be built and equipped,
more teachers should be trained and deployed to all the nooks and crannies of
the country while a vigorous and far-reaching enlightenment campaign must be
mounted to drum into parents and guardians the advantages of literacy and the
message that education for children is compulsory up to junior secondary level.
Parents or guardians who act as stumbling block to any child’s education should
be severely sanctioned.
Of course, the private sector must
understand that they also have a key role to play in the critical task of
educating the Nigerian child and should also rise to this national emergency,
much more than they have done in the past.
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