What is this disaster and how does it threaten our children? The disaster is the 10.5 million Nigerian children who are currently out-of-school. When we read certain numbers or statistics, they seem very far away and out-of-touch. We feel that the data is not close to home because we cannot see the details or any direct effect on members of our immediate families or loved ones.
But each number is a narrative; each statistic is a story and in our scenario today, a dangerous story that can rapidly snowball if we don’t address the anomalies right now.
The media giant, British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC reported a few months ago that 10.5 million Nigerian children of school age are out of school. For those whose children, nieces, nephews, cousins, sons and daughters are currently in school, the number 10.5 million and potential corresponding narratives may seem farfetched and not close to home.
However, fast-forward to a few years and we may have inadvertently raised an army of illiterate, mediocre, and angry discontents. Discontent because they will grow up to be frustrated further by the Nigerian system that does not support the uneducated. Angry because they may realize that they were shortchanged educationally during childhood and now in adulthood, they cannot fit into the global system and speed of lifestyle and development.
Based on research, when a woman is uneducated, she is likely to be unempowered to take care of herself or family. This limitation will affect how she works, feeds her family, spaces her children, adopts healthy practices like even using a contraceptive for family planning. For the men, it may hamper their occupational growth and ability to provide effectively for their families and render them powerless or emasculated.
We all know that knowledge is power and excluding 10.5 million children out of school makes them powerless in some form. Powerless to face the challenges of the modern age, powerless to engage with the political process, powerless to take important lifestyle decisions like how many children they can responsibly have and cater for. If some important decisions were taken from the beginning, we would not even have 10.5 million children that we cannot take care of or enroll in a school. Not having proper family planning education or any education at all is very dangerous because if knowledge is power, the absence of it must be powerlessness or weakness.
Having 10.5 million potentially weak people is not healthy for any community or country and Nigeria as a community in the global domain should constructively address the humongous issue of having 10.5 million children out of school. One of the ways of addressing the issue is to make free compulsory education accessible for every Nigerian child. I know that it is available in some respects but it may not be accessible due to a myriad of reasons. Another prong that can be used to address this issue is to initially stem the tide by creating awareness that people should avoid having children that they are unable to take care of by using effective and modern contraceptives for family planning.
Having 10.5 million potentially weak people is not healthy for any community or country and Nigeria as a community in the global domain should constructively address the humongous issue of having 10.5 million children out of school. One of the ways of addressing the issue is to make free compulsory education accessible for every Nigerian child. I know that it is available in some respects but it may not be accessible due to a myriad of reasons. Another prong that can be used to address this issue is to initially stem the tide by creating awareness that people should avoid having children that they are unable to take care of by using effective and modern contraceptives for family planning.
So many family planning methods like the types distributed by DKT International Nigeria include Kiss and Fiesta premium condoms, Levofem daily pills, POSTPILL Emergency pill, Sayana Press injectables, Lydia IUDs etc. They are available, very affordable and can help any person avoid unwanted pregnancies and not have children who they cannot take care of or even enroll in a school.
As the world marks International Literacy Day today, let us all make it a habit to create awareness that no Nigerian should have a child that is not wanted or cannot be taken care of. Every child should have a proper orientation in life through proper parenting, education and healthcare. If we cannot provide for these children, let’s prevent the pregnancy that births them so that every child born will truly be wanted, loved, properly cared for and literate.
Happy International Literacy Day
Chidinma Onuoha is the Program Manager for DKT Nigeria
As the world marks International Literacy Day today, let us all make it a habit to create awareness that no Nigerian should have a child that is not wanted or cannot be taken care of. Every child should have a proper orientation in life through proper parenting, education and healthcare. If we cannot provide for these children, let’s prevent the pregnancy that births them so that every child born will truly be wanted, loved, properly cared for and literate.
Happy International Literacy Day
Chidinma Onuoha is the Program Manager for DKT Nigeria
Happy international Literary day.
ReplyDeleteTruth is more kids are in school nowadays than the 90s and 80s....
DeleteSo it's getting better.
Barracudianusaurusunamon - Hi, Guys. It's me again. (:
ReplyDeletea great question, I have an answer, but I fear I might be too brutally honest with it.
Q.E.D.
Cheers.
Yours Blogospherially.
This writer is correct.
ReplyDeleteThen again, even with the provision of free education, some teachers are nonchalant towards the children.
Let's take Lagos state public schools for example. Just visit one of the primary and see for yourself.
Some teachers put in effort but some don't even bother to come to school on time.
And then even when they try to teach and give the kids homework, who will help to do it at home? Nobody is there to assist them.
The child brings the undone homework back to school and the teacher out of frustration, beats hell out of the child.
First step is to employ people with passion to teach and not just anybody or engage in this rubbish of 'man know man'.
I weep for my country Nigeria.
I can tell you that 9.5million of this children are from the North.. their rulers keep telling them that education is haram(sin)
ReplyDeleteOh really?? Good
DeleteWill some people hear??they'll just be bringing children into d world to suffer...na only them sabi lash otele(in Chike's voice)
ReplyDeletewait all this write up is just for advertisement? what a wawu
ReplyDeleteThe govt needs to enforce rules and policies that keep children in schools
ReplyDeleteThis number is too high and parents of this children should be arrested because most states now offer free education.
To stop this issue from growing the government has to put more effort into sensitising the local women about family planning.
They shouldn't give birth to kids they cannot train to schools.
The govt should also put an age restriction on marriage so that the underage marriage can be stopped as this is the No. 1 factor that produces out of school children.
When children are giving birth to children how won't we have such large numbers of out of school children.
LEP😛
The system has been designed by the law makers to be deficient.
ReplyDeleteYou go fear advertisements
ReplyDeleteStella the first day I heard this I felt so bad. This is added to the fact reports showed less than 40% of Nigerians go through complete 6-6-4 education. Meaning, that as crowded as our universities are, there's 150% of that amount who didn't make it in.
ReplyDeleteThese and more are the reasons why a lot of things aren't working in Nigeria. If we don't educate our children, then our future is bleak. It's bad enough that our education standards arent world-class, then to think that we still have children who aren't educated? Really sad.