The Nigeria government has made a lot of moves in improving access to education, increasing on – time school enrollment and building school infrastructure, however, attacks on schools, including abduction of children who should be safe in schools , especially in the northern part of the country, among others challenges, has made education experienced unprecedented disruption.
The future of Nigeria children is dwindling , if by 2030 Nigeria fail to attain all the 17 goals of sustainable development goals SDGs , especially those related to child educational development goals 1-4,. ( No poverty, Zero hunger, Good health and well being and quality education).
The SDGs goals 4 ( quality education) which is aimed at ensuring that all girls and boys complete free primary and secondary Schooling , as well as to provide equal access to affordable vocational training to eliminate gender and wealth disparities and achieve universal access to a quality higher education is still not a reality in Nigeria as 10.5 million Nigeria children are out of school.
With 8years left to the SDGs deadline, Nigeria faces a high possibility of failing to meet up with sustainable development goals (SDGs) one to four that guarantee good future for the country’s children.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 70 per cent of children in schools are not learning, a development which must be addressed by stakeholders.
The Communication Specialist, UNICEF, Dr. Geoffrey Njoku, made this known at a Two-Day Media Dialogue on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as Child Rights, in Kano.
Njoku said no country could focus on its SDGs in isolation of the children’s rights, saying that stakeholders must begin to focus on SDGs as Child rights , adding that one aspect of education which is foundational literacy and numeracy must be given attention to.
” Since 2010, we have pushed to change the narrative of the 10.5 million out-of-school children but even at that 70% of those in schools are not learning.
” We need to include these 70% in school who not learning to the 10.5million out-of-school children so that proper attention will be given to them.
” So it is high time we focus on learning by revamping the education system through teachers training, changing the curriculum and changing the narrative through quality education,” he said.
Also speaking at the media dialogue through a virtual presentation on scaling foundational literacy and numeracy in Nigeria, the UNICEF’s Education Specialist, Mrs Manar Ahmed said for Nigeria to achieve SDGs 2030, there is need for heavy investment in teachers both in time and financial resources .
Ahmed also said that tackling teachers training was not enough but also ensuring action plans for improving teaching and learning under the right environment was important.
According to her, Nigeria is not lacking the right policy but staggering learning crisis with learning outcomes is one of the lowest globally.
“In sub Saharan Africa, 87 per cent of children are in learning poverty as they do not have basic literacy by age 10.
” Goal four of the goal is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education that promote lifelong learning and all children by age 10 must know how to read and solve numeracy.
She added that 27 per cent of teaching staff in Nigeria were unqualified as qualified teachers were in short supply.
She said there was therefore the need to learn to read in order to achieve the goals of SDGs by 2030.
” We need to do more in structural approach of learning, community engagement in ensuring accountability.
” Structural approach is best for training of teachers, so on-the-job training as well as creating the right environment is important,” she said.
She therefore commended the country for her role in making huge change since 2017 when the national assessment of learning outcomes was carried out.
She said more needed to be done to achieve the 17 goals of the SDGs by 2030 as government allocation to education must be increased.
While reacting to report by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), that Nigeria is faced with staggering learning crisis with about 70 per cent of children in schools cannot read and write or perform basic numeracy task by age 10.
The Executive Secretary of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi has said that the Commission is worried by the poor learning outcomes in basic education despite huge intervention by the Federal Government.
He blamed this on a number of factors including, recruitment of unqualified teachers by some state governments, lack of regular professional training programmes for teachers, low remuneration among others.
The UBEC boss said even though the figures being bandied were not scientific, the Commission was working with UNICEF to have a large scale assessment of learning achievements in the country, going into the details of what the problems are and to improve on learning outcomes in Nigeria.
He said there was need to invest more on teachers that would teach children at the basic level of education, especially public schools across the country.
“There is no justification for all the investment, if the child in the classroom is not learning,” he said.
While the federal government is yet to meet the UNESCO’s 27 percent benchmark for funding education and 6 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) , respective state governments are not doing better either , as they are also quilty of low education budgetary allocation that barely take care of basic infrastructure needs and provision of needed tools to make learning conducive.
For Nigeria to attained the SDGs 2030 goals for guarantee quality future for Nigeria children, a lot still need to be done in the areas of increase funding , drastically reducing the over 10 million of out school children by making education more accessible.
By ensuring that every child get a quality education by addressing the challenge of learning crisis of over 70 per cent of 10years old school children in Nigeria that cannot understand a simple sentence or perform basic numeracy task ,by increasing budgetary allocation to education, the required 50% allocation.
As well by training and retraining teachers and availability of infrastructure and conducive learning environment for Nigeria child.
