Funding, major obstacle to nomadic education – Executive Secretary
Why did the National Commission for Nomadic Education embark on a tour to government agencies recently?When you talk on the issue of development, you talk on partnership with relevant government and private agencies so that you can get their support. When you come to nomadic education, we need to relate with some government agencies such […]
Why did the National Commission for Nomadic Education embark on a tour to government agencies recently?
When you talk on the issue of development, you talk on partnership with relevant government and private agencies so that you can get their support. When you come to nomadic education, we need to relate with some government agencies such as the National Planning Commission, the Universal Basic Education Commission and indeed the Ministry of Education as a whole. We also need to relate with other development agencies and it is through the planning commission that we can reach to the development agencies.
Recently, a South Korean Development Agency, through the commission, sponsored two of our staff members to South Korea for training.
Also when it comes to development, you can see how the Japanese and Chinese agencies have been involved in constructing basic schools in the country through the UBEC which means they are part of basic education. So there is need for us to reach out to these agencies and to reach to them we need to go to the National Planning Commission and that is why we deemed it necessary to liaise with the commission to reach out to the relevant agencies.
The level of nomadic education in the country is said to be as low as the normal education system itself. What is the commission doing to ensure that the nomads are educated as expected?
Part of the reasons for that backwardness is what we are trying to address now. For example, in the area of publicity, the media always focused on the regular primary or basic schools. In other words, the focus is always on either UBEC or SUBEB as in the case of states but hardly does the media talk about what is happening in nomadic education. So what we are doing now is trying to redress this anomaly which perhaps contributed to the low level of enrolment, low level of participation and low level of literacy even among the parents of the nomads. This is because when you educate the parents definitely they will support the education of their children. So what we are doing now is a kind of repositioning of the nomadic education commission in Nigeria so that the targeted people can acquire the desired education.
Does the security challenge in the country affect the activities of the commission?
The issue of security challenge in the country, you know the people say you cannot clap with one hand. So it means all sectors of education, including nomadic, are affected by the insecurity challenge. And when it comes to nomadic education, particularly in terms of ignorance, illiteracy and in terms of marginalisation to some extent, we can say it could be a sign of protest that we have not been taken care of and really need attention.
But to check the issue of insecurity and conflict, we need to educate these people to enable them know how to live peacefully with their neighbours; the migrant farmers need to live peacefully with their host community, the nomads need to know that they don’t need to go into other peoples’ farms and the same thing with the migrant fishermen because these are the areas of coverage of our own commission; the pastoralists, the migrant fishermen and the migrant farmers, all these need to know how to live in peace. Look at what is happening between farmers and Fulani herders in Nasarawa, Benue and Taraba states presently, it is not ideal for the commission. Even in the North East it is the problem of lack of orientation, lack of education and lack of awareness and until these are addressed we are not going anywhere and that is the major responsibility and major focus of our commission.
What population of Nigerians are you talking about?
We are talking about 15 to 17 million people and in terms of children we are talking about 3 to 4 million who are supposed to be in school but they are not in school. Presently, we have only about 500,000 pupils in our schools; we still have very few children of migrant farmers, migrant fishermen and pastoralists in schools. We need to reach out, mobilise and sensitise parents to send their wards to schools and therefore we need resources.
Funding is the major obstacle to our education sector, is the commission facing the same problem?
Of course funding is a major problem but presently we are being supported by UBEC and we are saying that if the UBEC resource is increased, the percentage of what is given to UBEC should also be given to nomadic commission so that we cannot rely on the capital allocation which sometimes half of it would not be released. But if we can have intervention like we have in UBEC we will perform better.
Right now because of UBEC support we are constructing 40 primary schools in different locations across the country and we have been able to train our teachers as a result of that support and we are producing more instructional materials so that children would be in schools equipped with what would be used and teachers should be there to teach. And because of our need for competent teachers in our schools, the commission is frequently organising training for our teachers so that we can equip them for the job. So the commission needs adequate fund to discharge its responsibilities diligently and effectively.