Missing out in global education race
Ten years after the 1990 World Conference on EFA indentified certain goals to be met in the global target on education, delegates at the World Education Forum (WEF) in Dakar, Senegal in 2000, took stock of the fact that many countries were already showing some weakness in attaining them. Participants including Nigeria at the Dakar […]
Ten years after the 1990 World Conference on EFA indentified certain goals to be met in the global target on education, delegates at the World Education Forum (WEF) in Dakar, Senegal in 2000, took stock of the fact that many countries were already showing some weakness in attaining them. Participants including Nigeria at the Dakar Forum on the Dakar Framework for Action re-affirmed their commitment to achieving EFA targets by 2015, identifying six key areas. These are to expand early childhood care and education; to provide free and compulsory primary education for all; promote learning and life skills for young people and adults; increase adult literacy by 50 percent; achieve gender parity by 2005 and gender equality by 2015; and improve the quality of education.
The 2014 GMR notes that Nigeria’s out-of-school population did not only grow the most in absolute terms of any country in the world since 2004-2005 by 3.4 million, but also had the fourth highest rate of growth, indicating that not much of the country’s wealth is being invested in public education and other social services to benefit the majority of the people.
The report says that there were 17 million more illiterate adults in Nigeria in 2008 than there were in 1991, a staggering increase of 71 percent; and there were 40 million illiterate adults in the country as at last year. The report asserts that half of Nigerian adults (51 percent) are illiterate. Women also continue to make up almost two-thirds of the global illiterate adult population. Half of sub-Saharan African women do not have basic literacy skills, the report adds.
Across the globe, only one-third of countries have achieved all of the measurable EFA goals set in 2000. No country in sub-Saharan Africa, achieved the EFA goals; and only seven countries in the region achieved even the most scrutinised goal of universal primary enrolment. A total of 16 out of the 20 bottom countries, including Nigeria, that were graded for progress towards ‘EFA’ are in sub-Saharan Africa.
The report provides some insights into the failure of most sub-Saharan countries to make headway on EFA, citing corruption, conflict and lack of investment. It notes that in Nigeria’s case, the country has one of the worst education systems in the world.
It blames political leadership for the loss of $21 million of education fund in two years, which it attributed to corrupt officials. The report, being released ahead of the next WEF in Inchon, South Korea next month, also reveals that the gap between the poor and the average in Nigeria has increased with the number of school-going children from the poorest households dropping from 35 percent to 25 percent in 2013. A lack of focus on the marginalized parts of the population has left the poorest five times less likely to complete a full circle of primary education than the wealthy; and over a third of out-of-school children live in conflict affected zones. While less than half of adolescents are enrolled in junior secondary schools in Nigeria, one third of them in low-income countries will not complete junior secondary school in 2015.
The report obviously is a portrayal of the policies of successive administrations on education as mere lip service. Where the government has demonstrated some capacity to lift education, this is often compromised by corrupt officials and crooked contractors. That the nation would today be lamenting failure to meet standards the government signed off on is a huge disappointment; the ramifications will be felt for many years, unless a radical turnaround is undertaken. The government has failed millions of its citizens as a result.