Reading, math: UNICEF’s verdict on Nigerian children

NIGERIANS worried about the deterioration of educational performance in Nigerian primary and secondary schools must have confirmed their worst fears with the latest report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) showing that 75 percent of Nigerian children aged between seven and and fourteen years no simple sentence or solve a basic math problem. The UN agency made this startling judgment last week in a statement issued by its country representative, Ms. Christian Munduate, on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Education. Munduate said: “I join the global call to invest in people, prioritize education and urge Nigeria to deliver on the commitments made by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari at the Transforming Education Summit from the UN Secretary-General in September 2022 to end the global learning crisis… In order for children to read to learn, they must be able to learn to read in the first three years of school.” Mundate said UNICEF would support the commitment to transform education and prevent the loss of hard-won achievements in getting children, especially poor rural children, to school and ensure they stay in school, complete their education and achieve their full potential. achieve potential.

She added that UNICEF, along with its partners, would continue to support federal and state governments to reduce the number of out-of-school children by providing safe, secure and violence-free learning environments, both in formal and non-formal settings, involving communities across the globe. importance of education and providing cash transfers to households and schools. She tasked the government to improve learning outcomes by expanding access to quality early childhood education, scaling up basic literacy programmes, providing digital skills and life and employability skills to adolescents to help transition from enable school-to-work, and increase domestic spending on education to meet the global benchmark of 20 percent by 2030 and to address infrastructure and learning gaps that undermine all children’s access to inclusive and quality education. “As Nigeria’s presidential election approaches, on behalf of UNICEF and the children of Nigeria, I call on all presidential candidates to make investment in education a top priority in their programs,” she said.

If the UNICEF report proves anything, it is the fact that governments across the country, particularly since the return to civilian rule in 1999, have not approached the education sector with the right attitude and therefore have not deployed the right resources for education. If Nigerian children are to overcome their literacy and math difficulties, it must start with governments at all levels that have the right attitude towards education. We make this observation with history as a mirror to us. When the sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo declared his extraordinarily successful policy of free education in the defunct western region, he wanted to use education as a liberating, empowering force that would help free generations of people from the shackles of poverty and despondency. In other words, he wanted to use education as a social engineering tool. Today, state governors declare “free education” without realizing its true meaning; they view free education as handing out notebooks and abolishing tuition fees, paying little or no attention to the quality of education in well-equipped schools. The consequences will undoubtedly be catastrophic.

If there is any concern about the state of education at the lower levels, then governments and education administrators should be more serious about what they are doing. The thrust of the UNICEF report is that Nigeria’s so-called primary education is incapable of imparting basic knowledge or intelligence, which calls into question the effectiveness of the entire education building. The fact that other levels of education can only be built on basic education makes this unsavory report a threat to the entire education system in the country. Governments and education administrators and teachers must understand the ugly implications of this report and renew the basic education structure in the country to make it effective and productive.

Among other things, the office of Local Inspectors of Education must be revived. When teachers know they are being monitored, they sit up. In addition, it is quite clear that governments at all levels need to significantly improve the learning environment, which means providing modern learning resources. While the UNICEF report addressed language and numeracy skills, state governors would do well to realize that multimedia literacy is the in-thing among educators around the world. The emphasis must shift from the culture of writing meaningless notes to using computers to solve problems. Nigerian children should be tech savvy, and this should start at the lower levels. To achieve this, teachers must be well motivated and parents themselves must pay more attention to the education of their children. It is important to do everything possible to reverse the current trend and put in place the necessary remedial processes that ensure that primary education serves its intended purpose effectively and efficiently. Everything that can be done must be done to bring about the necessary changes, and urgently.

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