A common theme in a traditional Nigerian home is the strong desire to attain a decent education. According to the most recent figures from UNESCO – Nigeria sent the largest number of African students abroad – 95,000 – and ranked fifth in the world in terms of the overall number of students in the foreign study; Britain and America were among their top destinations. Suppose you consider the billions of pounds and dollars being remitted annually from Nigerians in the diaspora. In that case, education undoubtedly opens the door to prosperity and is ultimately the key to eradicating poverty.
Unfortunately, within Nigeria’s borders, the struggle to attain a decent education remains a serious issue. One in five out-of-school children globally is in the country, making up about 20% of children that are not getting any formal education.
According to UNICEF, about 10.5 million of the country’s children aged 5-14 years are not in school, and only 61 per cent of 6–11-year-olds regularly attend primary school. The picture is even bleaker in the north, with a net attendance rate of 53 per cent. The spate of recent kidnappings has made the situation even more severe. More than 600 schools in the region have shuttered this year — some temporarily, some indefinitely — and 3 million fewer children are in class, government data show. Experts blame a combination of coronavirus pandemic closures, extremism and organized crime. Getting out-of-school children back into education poses a massive challenge.
While government and aid agencies must focus on these statistics, we cannot lose focus on the fate of the children attending school in Nigeria but are failing to attain a decent education. It is widely accepted that most of Africa’s education and training programs suffer from low-quality teaching and learning and inequalities and exclusion at all levels. We must not abandon our gifted children. Not only are they a gift to their school, their family and their communities, but they are also a gift to Nigeria and the entire world.
Economic growth is reliant on the cognitive skills of the population. Attending school is one thing; attending a good school is another. For Nigeria to truly benefit from our understated exceptional human capital, the current state of public education must be overhauled. It makes no difference if a child is from a rich or poor household. Given an equal opportunity, they can overcome difficulty to achieve the potential they were destined to attain.
HESED is an initiative and my contribution to providing quality education to Nigerians as a borderless structure with a general curriculum. The e-learning platform complements the current school system by using a national curriculum with the option of studying an international syllabus.
We must not abandon our gifted children.
Matthew Odu is a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria
