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.” Dr. Kofi Anan, former Secretary General, United Nations.
The 1985 Christian classic movie, the “Fourth Wise Man” is quite instructive. The movie is an adaptation of the “Other Wise Man,” a short novel written by Henry van Dyke in 1895. The story is an expansion and adaptation of the account of the Biblical Magi in the Gospel of Matthew chapter two in the New Testament of the Bible. In the Biblical narrative we were familiar with the three wise men or magi, but the movie tells of a “fourth” wise man.
It tells the story of a Magi named Artaban, who like the others saw the signs in the heavens proclaiming that a King had been born among the Jews. Carrying three precious jewels to give to the baby Messiah, Artaban and his reluctant servant Orontes set off to join the caravan of the three other wise men. They miss the caravan, but Artaban continues the search for his King, always one step behind. He later spent much of his remaining wealth and all of his energy helping the poor and unfortunate people he meets.
Since he missed the caravan, and he couldn’t cross the desert with only a horse, he is forced to sell one of his treasures in order to buy the camels and supplies necessary for the trip. He then commences his journey but arrives in Bethlehem too late to see the child, whose parents have fled to Egypt. As the movie progresses, he saves the life of a child at the price of another of his treasures. He then travels to Egypt and to many other countries, searching for Jesus for many years and performing acts of charity along the way. After thirty-three years, Artaban is still a pilgrim and a seeker after light. He arrives in Jerusalem in time for the crucifixion of Jesus. He spends his last treasure, the pearl, to ransom a young woman from being sold into slavery.
At a point in the movie, he ended up in a leper colony assisting the outcasts. He was so frustrated by the fact that they could not lift their fingers to help themselves and vented his frustration on the spokesperson of the colony. “Can’t you people do anything,” he blurted. “Who will teach us?” was the reply he got. He ended up teaching the lepers how to farm in order to be self-sufficient, which they later became.
The moral of that aspect of the movie is that we need dedicated and committed teachers in Nigeria. A recently released report put the population of illiterate adults at over 64 million! It tells a sad and frightening story of a country that places little or no premium on education. It is a depressing story of a potentially great country, a country with a blurred vision, and leadership who fail to see the immediate/long term implications of so large a number of illiterates. It is a classic story of ineptitude, self-centeredness and leadership failure.
This figure is slightly different from that released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which put adult illiteracy rate in Nigeria at 56.9%. The implication of this is that about 70% of Nigerians are illiterates. The global illiteracy rate is approximately 20%.
Is it that our policy makers cannot see that education has a big role to play in today’s continually changing and competitive world? The current scenario can only portend one thing: a very bleak future.
I struggle to understand how a country with an estimated population of 170 million people could be at ease with itself with 64 million uneducated adults; to me, this is not only alarming and disastrous, but downright embarrassing. It is even more embarrassing that little is being done to change the status quo. If anything, the situation is getting worse, especially in parts of the country where Boko Haram has been working tirelessly to ensure that people – whose attitude towards formal education is, at best, lukewarm – abandon it altogether.
About three weeks ago, Esther Uduehi, the Chairman, Governing Board of the National Mass Education Commission who spoke at an event marking this year’s International Literacy Day in Awka, Anambra State, described the situation as shameful. “We all know that an illiterate is a danger not only to himself (or herself), but to the society at large.” She said.
Let’s get down to the basics; what is literacy? UNESCO describes it as “one of the key elements needed to promote sustainable development, as it empowers people so that they can make the right decisions in the areas of economic growth, social development and environmental integration.” Literacy, the United Nations agency continues, is “a basis for lifelong learning and plays a crucial role in the creation of sustainable, prosperous and peaceful societies.”
Sounds very simple right? No; there’s more than meets the eye because it is doubtful if the government – especially at the state and local levels – whose duty it is to promote basic education, share this view. Billions of naira of the various States Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) funds is locked up somewhere because some states deliberately refuse to fulfill their part of counterpart funding arrangement with the board which is expected to unlock the vaults and improve education in their states.
It is disheartening to note that despite the numerous programmes and existing laws geared towards promoting basic education, very little is being done to actualise it. I’ll like to point out the Universal Basic Education, launched by the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration in 1999. The programme makes access to formal education free and compulsory for the first nine years of a child’s education. Besides, the Child’s Rights Act also takes care of this, while prohibiting the unwholesome practice of forcing teenage girls out of school for early marriage.
But rather than take advantage of these programmes, many states only pay lip service to them. In a nutshell, many of our states lack the discipline needed to fulfil the requirements for accessing available funds. This makes it difficult to bridge the huge funding gap in education, while the funds that should have taken care of that keep piling up. In some instances, they even refuse to domesticate the law.
So how did we get to this inglorious place? The answer is not farfetched. Years of negligence and apathy has seen the near total collapse of public education system in Nigeria. Yes, we’ve had a proliferation of private varsities and schools, but these don’t come cheap and only a privileged few can assess them. This leaves a vast number of the poor making do with a comatose public education system.
While other countries are striving to reverse their educational challenges, Nigeria seems to be wallowing more in the “comfort zone” of illiteracy. China, for instance, with a population of over 1.3 billion people, was able to more than halve its number of illiterate population from 142 million to 67 million between 2000 and 2010. Even India, which has the global record of 287 million illiterate adults, was also able to reduce the number of adult illiterates by 15 per cent between 1991 and 2006.
Not only has Nigeria failed her citizens in this area, the country, according to UNESCO’s figures, also has the largest number of out-of-school children in the world. This number, put at 10.5 million, only portends danger ahead. With this number, the foundation has already been laid for a future of adult illiterates to “take over” from the present generation.
As a development scholar, I’m aware that this high number of illiterates is the fundamental reason the country’s development has remained stunted and the reason we always rank low in human development indices.
This gloomy picture does not mean we should just lift our hands in defeat and give up. No, we shouldn’t. If China could reduce its huge population of illiterates by 75 million in 10 years, there is no reason why Nigeria cannot wipe out the 64 million within the next decade. All that is needed is a reordering of priorities. There is the need for serious mobilization and awareness on the importance of education; we have no other option.
