- Nigeria needs to urgently address the crisis
Nigeria needs 58 years to banish illiteracy and this is going to be hectic.” This alarming assessment was among highlights at an international workshop on teaching and learning organised by Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. The speaker was Dr. Muhammed Alkali, National Programme Officer, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Regional Office in Abuja. According to him, over 62 million Nigerians are illiterates. With the country’s total population put at 178.5 million in 2014, UNESCO’s statistics regarding its illiterate population is lamentably on the high side.
The yearly celebration of International Literacy Day on September 8 underscores the place of literacy in the modern world. The special day endorsed by UNESCO has been celebrated since 1966, and helps to keep the international community focused on literacy issues. Also noteworthy is the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) launched in 2003 with the objectives of increasing literacy levels and empowering illiterates.
The theme of International Literacy Day 2015 was “Literacy and Sustainable Societies”. According to UNESCO, “Literacy is a key driver for sustainable development. Literacy skills are the prerequisite for the learning of a broader set of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, required for creating sustainable societies.”
There is no doubt that Nigeria needs to achieve higher literacy levels in order to achieve greater socio-economic development. Notably, Alkali said: “UNESCO is targeting drop-outs which are predominant in JSS2 going by available research in Nigeria. We are seriously concerned and worried with the increasing illiteracy in Africa…Unless we are deceiving ourselves, ICT remains the best way to provide education now…” It is useful to note Alkali’s point about Information and Communications Technology (ICT), as well as his argument that full introduction of ICT is indispensable in the 21st century for the realisation of a knowledge-based economy.
Against the background of the country’s high illiteracy figures, the new Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, definitely has his work cut out for him. It is reassuring that Adamu showed appreciation of the work to be done during his first meeting with top officials of the Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja. He said: “The core problems of education in the country vary from one level of education to another, the crisis of underfunding, which gave birth to a whole series of other problems such as poor infrastructure for teaching and learning, poor conditions of service for teachers and the menace of brain drain from our tertiary institutions.”
Adamu lamented: “Also the crises of poor enrolment and access which has left millions of school age children roaming the streets and the crisis of regulation which has turned the entire education system into a jungle where everything goes. The system has been left unregulated, unsupervised and with no recourse to ethics and professionalism.”
The connection between individual literacy and social development cannot be over-emphasised; and the role of good governance in the eradication of illiteracy cannot be downplayed. Ideally, all tiers of government should be involved in ensuring that reading and writing skills are more widely taught and learned across the country.
It is politically correct to consider literacy a human right based on the inclusion of basic education in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This modern thinking and the global idea of “Education for All” are manifestations of humanity’s progress on the path of human rights. It is bad enough that one in five adults cannot read and write in a world estimated to have 776 million illiterates.
The country’s literacy efforts have proved inadequate. What is needed is a sustained collective effort which will go farther than one-shot programmes or campaigns.
