Hi Charles,
Thanks for sharing with us your wife's critical analysis of Nigeria's education
system and what needs to be done to fix the problems for the country to achieve
its vision 2020. The article is relevant for education in any Sub-Saharan
African country. I encourage others to read it. It makes a compelling argument
for education as a prime mover for the socioeconomic transformation of a
country!
My regards to her.
Thanks.
Sam
________________________________
From: Charles Male <cdm...@gmail.com>
To: Kobokonet Koboko <koboko...@yahoogroups.com>; A Virtual Network for friends
of West Nile <westnilenet@kym.net>
Sent: Saturday, 21 September 2013, 7:24
Subject: [WestNileNet] Leave no child behind
Dear all,
I thought you might find the article written by Madam in the below
interesting. Just subsitute the name of authorities/jurisdictions
involved (country and government department) and you find this is
exactly what happens in Uganda.
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/specials/leave-no-child-behind/
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Leave no child behind
Our Reporter September 3, 2013 No Comments »
Another look at Vision 2020 and Child’s Rights Act 2003
BY LOLA FABOWALÉ
This month (September 2013), Nigeria’s Child’s Rights Act, 2003 will
clock 10 years of existence. That will be just seven years shy of the
country’s Vision 2020 target to be an industrial powerhouse with the
stature of membership in the G-20 Club by the year 2020.
A key tenet of The Child’s Right Act, 2003 is that the country will
furnish children with quality, culturally-rich education, irrespective
of background. Achieving this aim will be core to an innovative,
diversified and integrated economy.
Yet, Nigeria’s educational system remains uneven in terms of
accessibility, affordability and quality, especially, when factored
against disabilities, gender, income and locale. Of the 60% of
children between the age of 6 and 11 years who are in school, 80%
attend public primary schools where at least 23% of teachers are
unqualified to teach because they lack the basic National Certificate
in Education (NCE).
Remaining students divide roughly equally into: 10% who attend private
primary schools that meet world standards; and another 10% whose
schools’ rankings fall in the middle. Basic infrastructure such as
classrooms, computers and constant electricity supply, are often
lacking in the public schools. Interaction between classrooms and the
immediate environment tends to be low.
Government educational spending is consistent neither with United
Nations guidelines nor with G-20 levels.
Low status of infant and maternal health services means that many
students are ill-prepared to learn from birth to age 18. Many
children go to school hungry. Poor remuneration and ill-working
conditions translate to brain drain from the education sector; few
talented job aspirants want to teach.
Observations
The ensuing disparities run contrary to the goals of Child’s Rights
Act 2003. Resultant differences also contradict Nigeria’s G-20
aspirations as seen–in a low literacy rate of 61.3%; in an
under-diversified labour force that is skewed towards the arts rather
than the sciences; in declining school and labour participation rates
that are more pronounced for children from disadvantaged backgrounds
(low-income, female, rural, or disabled) who experience acute
deprivation best characterized as multiple jeopardy; in growing
incidence of juvenile delinquency; in rising levels of under-skilled,
under-employed and unemployed citizens.
Lax standards, or high costs of quality education, or both, mean that
some girls take on “Sugar Daddies” as financial sponsors, trade sex
for marks, or face sexual harassment from teachers or fellow students.
For many such girls, harsh realities may feature curtailed future
aspirations arising from either early pregnancies, or single
parenthood, or membership in polygamous homes.
Reliable and consistent data reflect a society committed to monitoring
progress in its structures and processes. The dearth of statistics on
the status of persons with disabilities is quite telling in this
regard. So too are prevailing societal attitudes which tend to treat
persons with disabilities as objects of charity rather than as
potentially powerful change agents in whom Nigeria needs to invest.
Yet, all around the world, governments are envisioning how they can
set better policies and provide better services for their citizens.
Recognizing that they must compete internationally to improve the
livelihoods of their population, they seek to groom all their citizens
with top-notch, life-long education rooted from infanthood.
Aspire forward
With a view to holding periodic progress conferences (including in
2014/2015), stakeholders in Nigeria–governments, non-governmental
organizations, donor agencies, faith-based institutions, teachers’
training institutions, parents’-teachers’ associations, students’
unions, alumni associations, cultural institutions, teachers’ unions
and other professional associations—including Nigerians in the
Diaspora, should ASPIRE to the G-20 club by following these six steps:
• Adhere to the non-discriminatory spirit of the Child’s Rights Act,
2003 by making education mandatory and free for all starting at three
years of age and up to 18.
• Spear-head the passing of an Accessibility for Nigerians with
Disabilities Act that ends current patronizing approach to persons
with disabilities, recognizing their potential to contribute to the
nation by providing them with full access to education;
• Press the Ministry of Education to work, in a results-based format,
with other stakeholders to secure a truly diversified,
entrepreneurial, innovative and integrated work force by
» setting curricula to demystify the mathematical sciences, especially
for girls;
» enhancing merit-based standards of conduct among students, teachers
and guardians;
» creating life-long curricula to better integrate the formal and
informal sectors;
» upgrading teachers’ conditions with better pay, facilities, training
and iterative review;
» requiring the Ministry plus its recipients to report budget and
expenditures on-line; and
» ensuring school preparedness from birth to age 18 by integrating
early education programs, school feeding programs, and infant and
maternal health services.;
• Intensify efforts to match electricity supply with demand to seize
opportunities for distance learning via diverse media—video, internet
and mobile cellular telephone applications;
• Reinforce efforts of the Federal Office of Statistics to upgrade
systematic collection of statistical data on education and labor
participation rates including for persons with disabilities; and
• Enrich budget allocations for education to meet or surpass the 26%
standard of the United Nations or G-20 levels of between 5% and 10% of
Gross National Product.
Considerations
The six ASPIRE steps outlined in this piece can resolve many of the
problems besetting Nigeria’s youth education agenda and the country’s
whole economy. Increased and targeted spending on education will
focus labor planning and development at all levels. Reliable
statistics on disadvantaged groups, especially persons with
disabilities, will facilitate charting progress on their status.
Posting all government budget and expenditures on-line will stimulate
public probity. Integrated social policy that enhances school
preparedness from birth will prove a prudent investment. Better
governance will encourage investment in all economic sectors.
Religious and cultural institutions have always had a role in
promoting ethical standards such as excellent morals, honesty and
fair-dealing. They can also transform lives by aspiring individuals
to rise above rather than succumb to negative conditions and
circumstances. Ethical and moral principles remain particularly
relevant in today’s global economy where investors seek international
contexts where they can reap fair and attractive returns. Entrenching
ethical principles and values will make Nigeria an attractive hub for
both domestic and foreign investment.
Developing life-long curricula that match career planning with
infrastructural needs will boost economic integration across formal
and informal sectors. As part of the ASPIRE steps, many of those to
be employed in the artisanal trades as masons, electricians and
mechanics will now complete a mandatory twelve years of minimum
academic training (as opposed to the current nine), with opportunities
for future upgrades. At the same time, those pursuing higher
education will add some blue to their white by seeking exposure to
practical, entrepreneurial or highly-skilled manual training. Such
developments will boost private job creation, lessening job-seekers’
current dependence on the public sector as a main creator of
employment.
A smart, decentralized nation-wide energy grid
Arguably, the fourth of the six ASPIRE steps—a viable, smart,
decentralized nation-wide electricity grid–touches the other five. It
deserves topmost priority. In this age of information, connectivity
is vital; electricity is an essential conduit for both the receipt and
the delivery of education services. Various innovations in educational
services via diverse media—video, mobile cellular applications, and
internet–require electricity to function. By the same token, strong
labour competencies grounded in a versatile education system are the
only solutions to the myriad of challenges facing Nigeria’s
beleaguered energy sector.
Stakeholders should welcome the decision of the federal government to
decentralize/privatize electricity generation, transmission and
distribution as opportunities to strengthen local involvement in the
sector and to honor children’s rights. Electricity has been in Nigeria
since 1896. For a variety of reasons (read over-centralization,
exclusion of state and local actors, inadequate planning,
under-investment, and inconsistencies in stakeholders’ agenda), it has
yet to actualize its potential as a linchpin for national economic
development. A concert of federal institutions (including the Ministry
of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice, the
Federal Office of Statistics, the Presidential Task Force on Power,
and the Energy Commission of Nigeria)–is needed to harmonize
stakeholders’ goals, to make labor planning and development in the
energy sector a keystone for economic interventions, and to execute
the six ASPIRE steps.
Conclusion
This piece shows that Nigeria needs to better honor its educational
commitments to all its children. Fulfilling the nation’s G-20’s
aspirations as set out in its Vision 2020 and improving its children’s
quality of education as envisioned in its Child’s Rights Act 2003 are
two sides of the same coin. Respecting children’s rights translates
to meeting obligations to older citizens, especially teachers, and
vice-versa. Moves to privatize and decentralize provision of energy
services are avenues for states and local actors to tackle educational
gaps. Stakeholders should converge around infrastructural planning
that makes adequate supply of electricity the focal point to both
advance children’s educational agenda and meet diverse national
economic goals. Progress conferences on outlined steps should hold in
2014/15 onwards.
FABOWALÉ wrote this article from Ottawa, Canada
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