
Illiteracy figures
•Nigeria needs to urgently address the crisis
Nigeria needs 58 years to banish illiteracy and
this is going to be hectic.” This alarming
assessment was among highlights at an
international workshop on teaching and
learning organised by Afe Babalola University,
Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. The speaker was Dr.
Muhammed Alkali, National Programme Officer,
United Nations Educational Scientific
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Regional
Office in Abuja. According to him, over 62
million Nigerians are illiterates. With the
country’s total population put at 178.5 million
in 2014, UNESCO’s statistics regarding its
illiterate population is lamentably on the high
side.
The yearly celebration of International
Literacy Day on September 8 underscores the
place of literacy in the modern world. The
special day endorsed by UNESCO has been
celebrated since 1966, and helps to keep the
international community focused on literacy
issues. Also noteworthy is the United Nations
Literacy Decade (UNLD) launched in 2003 with
the objectives of increasing literacy levels and
empowering illiterates.
The theme of International Literacy Day 2015
was “Literacy and Sustainable Societies”.
According to UNESCO, “Literacy is a key
driver for sustainable development. Literacy
skills are the prerequisite for the learning of
a broader set of knowledge, skills, attitudes
and values, required for creating sustainable
societies.”
There is no doubt that Nigeria needs to
achieve higher literacy levels in order to
achieve greater socio-economic development.
Notably, Alkali said: “UNESCO is targeting
drop-outs which are predominant in JSS2
going by available research in Nigeria. We are
seriously concerned and worried with the
increasing illiteracy in Africa…Unless we are
deceiving ourselves, ICT remains the best way
to provide education now…” It is useful to
note Alkali’s point about Information and
Communications Technology (ICT), as well as
his argument that full introduction of ICT is
indispensable in the 21st century for the
realisation of a knowledge-based economy.
Against the background of the country’s high
illiteracy figures, the new Minister of
Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, definitely
has his work cut out for him. It is reassuring
that Adamu showed appreciation of the work
to be done during his first meeting with top
officials of the Federal Ministry of Education
in Abuja. He said: “The core problems of
education in the country vary from one level
of education to another, the crisis of
underfunding, which gave birth to a whole
series of other problems such as poor
infrastructure for teaching and learning,
poor conditions of service for teachers and
the menace of brain drain from our tertiary
institutions.”
Adamu lamented: “Also the crises of poor
enrolment and access which has left millions of
school age children roaming the streets and
the crisis of regulation which has turned the
entire education system into a jungle where
everything goes. The system has been left
unregulated, unsupervised and with no
recourse to ethics and professionalism.”
The connection between individual literacy and
social development cannot be over-
emphasised; and the role of good governance
in the eradication of illiteracy cannot be
downplayed. Ideally, all tiers of government
should be involved in ensuring that reading
and writing skills are more widely taught and
learned across the country.
It is politically correct to consider literacy a
human right based on the inclusion of basic
education in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. This modern thinking and the
global idea of “Education for All” are
manifestations of humanity’s progress on the
path of human rights. It is bad enough that
one in five adults cannot read and write in a
world estimated to have 776 million illiterates.
The country’s literacy efforts have proved
inadequate. What is needed is a sustained
collective effort which will go farther than
one-shot programmes or campaigns.