The American University of Nigeria has being leading the fight against illiteracy in Yola, Adamawa state capital and other states in the North East. Faith Yahaya who visited Yola recently, writes on the school and its effort to reduce illiteracy among school children in the region.
A survey conducted sometime ago by UNESCO’s showed that despite moves to better the country’s education system, about 65 million Nigerians remain illiterate.
The pointer here is that we do not need soothsayers to tell us that the statistic is alarming and as a matter of national urgency, we need to work to redress our literacy crisis. The issue of illiteracy especially how to reduce or eradicate it has come up at different fora, but can it be reduced or eradicated?
There are so many children who are out of school, while those in school right now cannot boast of even getting the quality education they desire, as there are fundamental issues to be addressed. Are the teachers well trained, is the environment conducive and are the policy makers introducing right policy that will encourage better learning?
The usual maxim we get is that Nigerians or blacks don’t read, but how do we instil the culture of reading into kids when statistics has it that 35 million Nigerian adults are illiterate?
Another point that has come to fore is the fact that children of illiterate parents are likely to be illiterate themselves, except in rare cases. This is a fact that we are faced with whether we admit it or not. The situation of illiteracy became worse in some parts of the country with attacks by Boko Haram on some communities which left so many displaced.
To underscore the importance of education, many people have come up with ideas of how illiteracy and poverty which have been the bane of our society can be addressed.
The former United States of America President, Bill Clinton, said literacy is not a luxury”, but a right and a responsibility”, but how many people have this so called right in Nigeria?
According to former United Nations Secretary General, Dr Kofi Anan, “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a basic tool for daily life in modern society. It is a wall against poverty, and a building block of development. Literacy is a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity”
Nelson Mandela also said that education is the most powerful weapon which one can use to change the world.
There is no denying that literacy is vital to the achievement of every growth index but despite this, illiteracy has continued to be problem.
To successfully confront poverty, disease, religious fanaticism, political chaos, ethnic bigotry, gender discrimination, economic depression among others, collective efforts must be made to enhance the literary level.
With the continuous increase in illiteracy level, an expert has said Nigeria needs to do a lot if it wants to remain relevant in the world.
The African Development Information marked the North Eastern zone of Nigeria as the least educated region in the federation with 52.4 percent uneducated males and 61.1 percent uneducated females.
With this worrisome statistics, an education expert, the President of the American University of Nigeria (AUN), Prof. Margee Ensign stated that the level of illiteracy ravaging the northeast can be eradicated in three years.
To eradicate illiteracy, Prof. Ensign said policy makers need to adopt technology noting that if it is done, north-eastern Nigeria will wave illiteracy bye. While she also suggested a shift from the traditional mode of teaching which is the use of classrooms and chalkboard or marker to embracing technology, Ensign however stressed that “What is important is the demographics.
Nigeria is one of the fastest growing countries in the world with a population of about 180 million now. Do you know where the population will be in the next 26 years? Just double it and that will make Nigeria 360million. How are you going to educate the kids that are born everyday? It is really important that policy makers think about it because with the piece of statistics, it is really unfortunate that Nigeria has more children out of school than any other country in the world. Nigeria has millions of illiterates and now with the insurgency, 2 million more have been added to this groups of people. With these statistics, do you think you have time to do things the traditional way? It is not possible but that is what the policy makers are saying.
The policy makers are saying you should build schools, train teachers but the fact is that, many of the children in schools now don’t get an education that will prepare them to have an income or prepare them to be productive citizens of the country. So, I really believe there is only one way to do it and that is technology and that is why we are pioneering the use of technology in Yola and the Northeast”.
Besides, since the solution for Nigeria’s rapidly growing population and for education is technology, she agreed that Nigeria can do it well, “It is not the second best solution, I think if we do it well, Nigeria will leapfrog. If we don’t do it in the traditional way, we are going to teach these kids how to learn by accessing information, by having critical thinking skills to evaluate things and they will be the model for the world but we are not there yet because we don’t have approval to do those things and that is why someone needs to shakeup the people at the top really hard. I would love to have the approval to offer this education in a blended format in every major city in this country so that people can learn both online and in person. The research shows that it is the best way to do it. So, it is not the second best solution to use technology but the best but the policy makers are not there yet,” she added.
She also disclosed that the school initiated a programme called Feed and Read as part of ways to impact knowledge into young kids, noting that It is the children on the street who are learning how to read, half of them are listening to radio while half are on tablet computers. With this initiative, kids learn in matter of months. “With the programme, the children read well, they have confidence and that is how Nigeria is going to change quickly because Nigeria does not have a lot of time and if we don’t educate the 2 million who are out of school in the northeast plus 14 million who are already out of school, we are going to have social unrest for a very long time. So, these people must have education, they must learn how to have
income, they must learn new skills. We are basically doing model projects in Yola and it will scale them up to the northeast and then they can go anywhere in the country”.
Having suggested technology as the panacea to eradicating illiteracy, it is high time we look in that direction. At individual level, we need to be better at making parents throughout the country aware of the critical importance learning and education play in their children’s future. A child who can read and write sufficiently will enjoy better employment prospects, better earning capacity, better access to healthcare and be less likely to face social exclusion. Reducing illiteracy should therefore be viewed as an investment, rather than a cost, for both the governments and households. Overcoming illiteracy in Nigeria will require a long-term commitment from governments, NGOs, educators and parents. We can no longer look to just one group to provide solutions or outcomes and that is why we need to work together to implement reforms and programmes like the one suggested by Prof. Ensign.
