Nigeria and Low Literacy Level

[oasis]

A United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report recently observed that illiteracy levels in Nigeria have reached vertiginous heights. Among the twelve countries identified by the report, Nigeria is ranked as the fifth with the largest number of illiterates within its borders, representing 2.9 per cent of the global average. The others include the first four: India, China, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Those after Nigeria are Ethiopia, Indonesia, Egypt, Brazil, Iran, Morocco and DR Congo.

The report defines an illiterate as “ one who cannot understand, read and write a short, simple statement in his or her everyday life� rendering the statistics staggering and throwing the condition of illiteracy in the country into grimmer, poignant and sharp perspective. And as this is not chilling enough, this year’s verdict by the Education for All Global Monitoring magisterially postulates that this co-efficient is on the rise in Nigeria where illiteracy is still prevalent and registers itself most among rural women and the elderly especially in poor households which live below one dollar per day.

It is not as if the UNESCO report is revealing a situation entirely novel. It is not. If anything, many will rather agree that the report is charitable to Nigeria, considering the prohibitive circumstances education has been subjected to over the years by successive governments in Nigeria, many of them, military dictatorships that subverted the people will in the first place. What is self-indicting, lamentable and unconscionable is that rather than improve in our abysmal rating, we have elected to plunge further lower in the rungs of the ladder. As the report informs, Nigeria’s average percentage in 1990 was 2.7 percent of the world population of illiterates. Our fortunes have further dipped between 2000 and 2004, having recorded 2.9 percent.

This performance is significant as it falls within the years of our new democratic order, which should represent a new dawn and spirited efforts towards a renaissance in our educational system. While countries like India and China have attained significant, indeed, dramatic improvement within the same temporal frame, ours is a radical variance from that calculus. This is, no doubt, attributable to a total lack of political will by government, poor budgetary appropriation to the educational sector, which inspired official malfeasance by an Education Minister and constant flux in policies, most of which are ill-advised and poorly implemented-precipitating regimes of needless hiatus and heuristic measures which are largely inefficacious.

To us, rather than raise the spectre of pessimism and despondency, the UNESCO report should stir the dormant creative energies lurking within us and inspire our somnolent spirits towards pro-active strategies aimed at arresting the slide into greater illiteracy. We are convinced in this regard that there is no alternative to adequate and handsome investment in education. This is because an enlightened population is much easier to govern than an illiterate society. In the same token, while education possesses the tremendous capacity of engendering a liberationist ethos, illiteracy is a requisite promoter of ignorance, superstition and underdevelopment.

The supreme and historic task before us as a nation and a people is to meaningfully reverse the degenerate trend in illiteracy levels, reconstruct our educational policy towards performance and redefine our priorities. Our educational policies, for instance, must be result-oriented and be tailored to our national needs and aspirations. This can only be achieved through sustainable policies and not the capricious bent towards importing policies that are hostile to our peculiar milieu. It is within the schema that there is another new educational policy coming soon after the 6334 system, which was half-heartedly implemented.

It does not require an elastic stretch of the imagination to realise that Nigeria has been afflicted with abysmal and perennial leadership problem with education as a major casualty. No Nigerian head of state has yet to possess even a degree since independence. The humiliating graph of illiteracy plotted for the nation is a direct consequence of this reality. Added to this is our perverted values which have continued to shrink the frontiers of knowledge and encouraged the blooming of illiteracy.

Above all, it is our conviction that the superintending ministry should redefine its policy objectives towards optimum performance in literacy retrieval, and governments at various levels should put their money where there mouths are. With our demographic preponderance and abundant material and human resources, it is unconscionable that we should be on the list of illiterate nations of the world. Illiteracy should have no place here. Never.

http://www.independentng.com/sunday/viapr020601.htm

[Richard Akindele]

Certainly, not many Nigerians are aware that the country’s illiteracy level is still as high as over 51 per cent. It is indeed, disturbing that despite the laudable educational programmes embarked upon by successive administrations towards making Nigerians literate, available statistics show that the country still has a long way to go.

In an address sent recently to Minna, at the launching of a mass literacy programme tagged “Improving access to community education and literacy, using radio and television�; President Olusegun Obasanjo lamented that in spite of the current efforts by his administration to fight illiteracy, more than 51 per cent Nigerians are yet to become literate.

According to the report, statistics indicate a wide gender disparity, with 62.5 per cent of male population being literate, while only 39.5 per cent of females as literate in the country.

This shows that that former educational schemes such as the Universal Primary Education (UPE), 6:3:3:4 system of education, among others, initiated in the past made no serious impacts, given the current illiteracy level in the country.

It behoves, therefore, the present administration’s Universal Basic Education (UBE) to rise to the occasion and address this serious problem, especially now that President Obasanjo, has also noted that nearly 7.3 million children of primary school age were not in school; and 62 per cent of them are girls.

To address the situation, there is need for the establishment of more schools especially at both primary and secondary levels at strategic locations for the citizenry in the rural and urban areas.

It may also be necessary to suggest that the various governments should revert to the old system of free-education at at all levels, and also provide scholarship schemes for students at the tertiary and post graduate levels.

To raise the literacy level in the country, the Federal Government needs to re-emphasise the nomadic education system in the Northern states as well as the erstwhile migrant fishermen education programme in the South-South states. This, will no doubt address the issue of high illiteracy level in Nigeria

More importantly, the adult and non-formal education system which was hitherto rooted in all parts of the country, must be encouraged by government to enable parents acquire formal education at night.

The adult and non-formal education programme should not be concentrated only in the urban areas; the various local governments across the country should be directed to support and encourage it.

This column believes strongly that “mass literacy for all� can be achieved in Nigeria if the authorities adopt a system, close to the “technical aid corps�. This, should be aimed at cross-posting teachers in all parts of the country to help teach children and students from educationally disadvantaged states in the country.

To further boost the literacy level in Nigeria, more teachers training colleges, colleges of education and faculties of education should be established in order to have enough manpower to improve the nation’s literacy level.

This is because statistics show that there are no enough manpower in the teaching profession in certain subject areas in educational institutions across the country.

That way, Nigeria will be pulled out of the quagmire of an educationally backward country.
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