Education for all in 2015: Mirage or reality for Nigeria?

WHEN 164 countries, Nigeria inclusive, pledged to achieve Education for All by 2015 at a World Education Forum in Dakar Senegal in 2000, hopes were high that, by 2015, all school-age children would have access to education while adult illiteracy would be a thing of the past. This was because 15 years was such a long time to achieve such a goal.

But with less than two months to 2015, concerned stakeholders have expressed fears over Nigeria’s glaring inability to achieve that goal, especially when placed alongside the fact that Nigeria houses over 10.5 million out-of-school-children (OOSC), 35 per cent of its young adults illiterate, and with no obvious effort or structure being put in place by government towards achieving this enviable feat.


Though there has been significant increase in net  enrolment  rate in recent years, but reports show that Nigeria has one of the lowest spends per head for education; 40 per cent of children aged six to 11 do not attend primary schools; while the Northern region records the lowest school attendance rate in the country, especially for girls.

Despite government’s claim to have been working tirelessly towards attaining the 2015 goal, concerned educationists are of the view that its effort can be compared to pouring water into a basket as the challenges facing the sector are getting worse.

Acknowledging Nigeria’s growing number of illiterate population, the Chairman, Governing Board, National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education, NMEC, Dr Esther Udehi, at this year’s International Literacy Day in Awka, Anambra State, said: “Nigeria is home to some 64 million adults that are illiterate, and it is shameful that in the 21st century, a country could have that number of illiterates.”

A 2010 literacy survey conducted by NMEC defined adult literacy rate as the percentage of people from age 15 and above who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life. That definition put the overall literacy rate for adults in the country at 56.9 per cent.

Reversing the trend

Worried by this, Udehi added that Nigeria’s dream of attaining the objectives of EFA in 2015 would become elusive unless something was urgently done to reverse the trend.

Aware that attaining EFA 2015 would be a herculean task, the Chairperson, State Universal Basic Education Board, Lagos State, Mrs. Gbolahan Daodu, said government is putting in place measures to overcome the numerous challenges militating against achieving that goal.

“The federal government, through the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, has commissioned so many programmes targeted at reducing the number of OOSC and illiterate adults.

“The Lagos State government has done a lot and is continually appealing to corporate organisations and individuals to partner with it to, if not achieve that goal, reduce the numbers.”

Pointing out that Nigeria has, once again, failed to ensure that all school-aged children have access to education, the National Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign, Hassan Taiwo Soweto, called for a state of emergency to be declared in the education sector.

“The increasing number of OOSC and this year’s WAEC results are clear indications that there is crisis in the sector.” Soweto said.

On the way forward, the ERC boss said: “there is need for us to re-examine why the universal basic education programme failed as government still retains the failed philosophy that education should be mildly funded by it.

CHILD-ABUSE-2“With the lack of democratic control of funds for schools, funds meant to address issues in these schools end up in individual pockets and this has led to squandering of billions of naira that would have been used to turn the fortunes of the sector around.

“We have gotten to the stage where a state of emergency should be declared in the sector as we are confident that if government can propose a fool-proof strategy to move the sector forward, Nigeria can, within 10 years, reduce the number of OOSC, improve access to education and quality of education.”

In the same vain, the Lagos State Chairman, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Comrade Segun Raheem, said: “the attainment of any respectable standard for 2015 is a ruse, as government has failed to put in place any meaningful effort to fast-track achieving that. This is because education is the process of integrating the youths into the society and it is glaring that we are far from achieving that.”

Raheem proposed that government puts in place a structured teachers’ salary scale and call for stakeholders’ meeting of all education professionals to enable them chart ways of moving the country out of this quagmire.

In the words of Otive Igbuzor, PhD, of ActionAid International Nigeria in a paper titled  The State of Education In Nigeria; “if current trends continue, the target of achieving universal primary education  will be missed by, at least, a decade!”

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