Africa's Heath and Education | Page 38

The PANAFRICAN Review
20 per cent annual budgetary allocation for education . The country ’ s investment in education also trails far behind many smaller and less economically endowed countries in sub-Saharan Africa .
The dearth of education funding has meant poor remuneration of the academic staff and decrepit education infrastructure . University lecturers in Nigeria are among the least paid in the world . This partly accounts for the incessant cases of industrial unrests such as strikes and sitins commonly witnessed in the country ’ s tertiary institutions . Similarly , education facilities such as functional and wellequipped libraries , laboratories , and classrooms are either in short supply or in a state of disrepair .
There ’ s the challenge of access . Nigeria has the world ’ s highest number of out-of-school children , estimated at 10.5 million . In other words , one in every five of the world ’ s out-of-school children is a Nigerian . UNICEF also reports that only 61 per cent of children between 6 and 11 years regularly attend primary school while only 35.6 per cent of children aged 36- 59 months receive early childhood education in Nigeria .
In addition to the dwindling access to economic resources , especially in terms of its capacity to reduce the rate of school enrolment , other internal factors hinder access to education in Nigeria . For instance , in Northern Nigeria , where the prevailing cultural norms and religious practices , and where Boko Haram insurgency and other assortments of security threats are very pronounced , attendance in formal education is extremely low . The region boasts of a net attendance rate of 53 per cent . This suggests that a fraction of the remaining figure is exposed to Qur ’ anic education where basic skills such as literacy and numeracy are not included , since pupils enrolled in such places are officially classified as out-of-school children .
Gender , like geography , is another important factor in understanding the pattern of educational exclusion in the country . States in the North-East and North- West have female primary net attendance rates of 47.7 per cent and 47.3 per cent , respectively . This means that more than half of the girls in these places lack access to basic formal education . Apart from economic deprivations , the practice of the purdah ( a practice of female seclusion ) and child marriage as integral components of the dominant religion in northern Nigeria also impinges negatively on school enrolment in that part of the country , with child marriage being more pronounced in states that are yet to domesticate Nigeria ’ s Child ’ s Rights Act of 2003 .
Further , insecurity in Nigeria has continued to pose the greatest threat to teaching and learning , especially within the past 10 years . In particular , factors such as Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East , the so-called rural banditry in the North-West , and resource-use conflict between peasant farmers and herding communities across Nigeria have continued to undermine access to education in the country . Apart from the infamous abduction of 276 students from Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok in 2014 and another 105 from Government Girls Science and Technical College , Dapchi , in 2018 , the kidnapping of schoolchildren and teachers has sadly become a recurring decimal . Between December 2020 and July 2021 , more than 1,000 Nigerian students and their teachers have been abducted and held for ransom by criminal gangs , especially in the North-West .
Against the backdrop of these obstacles , what are the implications of this situation for Nigeria ’ s quest to realise different multilateral frameworks on education , especially Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the science , technology , and innovation components of the African Union ’ s Agenda 2063 ? Goal 4 of the United Nations Agenda 2030 seeks to achieve inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all .
However , with the rate of outof-school children , increasing vulnerability of schools to security threats , the existing religious norm , as well as the meagre budgetary allocation to Nigeria ’ s education sector , it is unlikely that the targets of Goal 4 will be achieved in the country unless the government addresses these challenges . ❧ ❧ ❧
Chikodiri Nwangwu is a teacher of Political Science at the University of Nigeria , Nsukka .

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