‘92% of Nigerian children can’t read simple text at age 10’

The National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) has raised alarm that over 92 per cent of Nigerian children cannot read and understand simple, age-appropriate texts by the age of 10, describing the crisis as a national emergency tied directly to poorly qualified teachers. Executive Secretary of the commission, Dr Angela Ajala, said the troubling […]

The National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) has raised alarm that over 92 per cent of Nigerian children cannot read and understand simple, age-appropriate texts by the age of 10, describing the crisis as a national emergency tied directly to poorly qualified teachers.

Executive Secretary of the commission, Dr Angela Ajala, said the troubling statistics show the urgent need to overhaul teacher education and reposition teaching as a prestigious, technology-driven profession capable of competing with law, medicine and other top careers.

Citing the World Bank’s Nigeria Poverty Assessment 2022, Ajala said the country’s learning poverty rate stands at 92.4 per cent, with 83.4 percent of affected children already in school but still unable to achieve minimum reading proficiency.

“More than nine in 10 Nigerian children cannot read and understand a simple, age-appropriate text by the age of 10. They are attending. They are sitting in classrooms. And they are not learning to read,” she said at a strategy retreat in Abuja.

“These figures are not someone else’s problem. They sit squarely within the mandate of this Commission,” she added.

Ajala said the crisis reflects decades of weak teacher preparation, outdated curriculum and poor perception of the teaching profession, warning that classroom access means little without quality learning.

“Access without quality is not enough. Getting children through the door of a classroom is not the goal. What happens to them once they are inside is the goal,” she said.

Ajala said to address this, the NCCE is rolling out a nationwide transformation of teacher education through digitisation, competency-based curriculum and a dual mandate system allowing colleges of education to award both NCE and Bachelor of Education degrees.

According to her, the reformed structure will also produce graduates with three qualifications — NCE, B.Ed and a skills certificate — aimed at changing the long-standing belief that teaching is a profession of last resort.

“For so long, teacher education was seen as the last option. But now, you step into a college of education today, you are coming out with three certifications,” she said.

Ajala said Nigeria must learn from countries like Finland, where raising teacher education standards to match medicine and law transformed national education outcomes.

She disclosed that the commission will conduct a comprehensive audit of 236 colleges of education nationwide, focusing on infrastructure, staffing, digital capacity and graduate outcomes.

“A Teacher Welfare Scheme will be central to this work, because no reform survives if the professionals it depends on do not feel the profession is worth staying in,” she said.