The giant of Africa and her 35 million illiterate adults

‘10.5 million’ is a figure people are familiar with. It is the number of Out of School Children in Nigeria-the highest in the world. However, Nigeria is not only notorious for the illiteracy level among children. According to a 2013 report, there are about 35 million adults in Nigeria who cannot read or write.

This is no surprise as the rot in the country’s education sector has been on for years. Its failure at the basic level in the recent past is now translating to adult illiteracy at a 40% rate. Every year on Sept. 8, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reiterates its call to governments and international organizations on the importance of ensuring all people have the opportunity to read and write. Last Monday, UNESCO’s World Literacy Day themed: ‘Literacy and Sustainable Development’ served as a pointer to remind Nigeria of the indispensability of an educated populace to the development of any economy. As the United Nation Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon put it: “Literacy provides tools for men and women to better understand the world and shape it to meet their aspirations.”

The statistics emphasize the import of the situation. According to UNESCO, 171 million people would be out of poverty if all students in all low income countries left school with the ability to read and write. Each additional year of schooling means a 10% increase in yearly income; 2.5 million under five were saved between 1999 and 2009 because of improvements in girl-child education. If all mothers had primary education, there would be 8% less cases of child diarrhea and 15% less infant mortality.

However, despite the release of N1 billion by the Minister of State for Education, Nyeson Wike, in 2013 as part of efforts to boost Adults and Non-Formal Education in the country, there hasn’t been much change in the sector. Mr. Giwa Abdullahi, who runs Giwa Adult Literacy tutorials in Lagos, told Saturday School Life: “Adult Literacy Centres set up by the government are almost non-existent. The only snippets of such centres are by individual professionals. A lot of the students we get are business men who did not have the chance to be educated when they were younger but now have a lot of literate people around them and feel that they need to get educated so they are not cheated in business.

But we rarely get people who are not already successful in business. I guess it is beyond the monetary implications; the will power to acquire knowledge when people are older is just not there. It does not augur well for our country that we have such a high rate of illiteracy. Adult literacy and continuous education cannot be over emphasized.

There must be policies put in place to encourage adult learning, finances must be devoted to the case, and there must be a lot of motivation to create interest.”

Mr. David Apeh, the spokesperson of the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, believes that the Federal Government’s efforts to reduce the large number of out of school children now, will in the long run translate to improvements in adult literacy. He said: “The Federal Government, through UBEC has built a total number of 152 Almajiri schools to deal with the challenge of boy-child education in the north. There are also similar attempts to improve both boy-child and girl-child education in different parts of the country.”

Nineteen year old Joseph Idienumah (not real name), is one of the 35 million who cannot read or write. When Saturday School Life, SSL, came in contact with him, he had lost both parents and could not keep a job because of his lack of education. There are millions like him around the country; young enough to be part of the country’s labour force, but too old to go back to primary school.

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