Nigeria – the first country in the world in terms of the number of out-of-school children. Government data indicates that 10.5 million children are uneducated. This was written off as being due to nomadic communities, the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency, cultural factors. Yet, according to critics, the problem arises due to insufficient funding.
It doesn’t matter if you are interested in googling for an example of an interpretive essay, the emergence of new genres in fiction, the debt problem in the United States or the problems of the Nigerian education system, there is a lot to learn online.
In this article, we would see some of the BBC data on the crisis in Nigeria. Let’s dive deeper into this and then how to fix these issues.
Regional differences
The BBC points to regional differences between North and South. Most out-of-school children are in the North. This is partly due to the nomadic lifestyle of the people here. Another factor is the banditry that plagues this part of the country. The northern part even has occurrences where bandits kidnap students and teachers from the school. Parents here also believe that education will lead their children away from the path of Islam. Thus, they do not send them to Western-type schools but to Koranic schools.
In the South, there is free education, so there are more children in school. Yet there are not enough teachers. There are not enough resources either. We here may be able to order cheap term papers, but over there we have no opportunity to achieve anything other than cheap education. Even classrooms are scarce and sometimes hundreds of students and more are in the same classroom.
Bad infrastructure
Again, we see the regional differences here. The North has no schools and children have to travel long distances to see a classroom. In the South, however, there is poor infrastructure. There are not enough classrooms, there are not enough teachers, learning materials are lacking.
Poverty
Most out-of-school children are in the North. This is partly due to poverty. Even those who want to send their children to school cannot afford it. The focus is of course on the nutrition of the children. There just isn’t enough left to spend on textbooks, uniforms, etc.
Lack of funds
Money is not the solution to everything. But the lack of money can harm many things. The educational system in Nigeria shows us this. The government does not finance the school system sufficiently and, because of this, it is also not possible to ensure sufficient access to education and quality education. This problem is partly due to corruption and theft of funds.
How to Solve the Crisis in Nigeria’s Education System
When something goes wrong, there are many ways to fix it. But to start, we would have to go back to basics. It’s hard to say, however, where the base is here. Perhaps the focus should be on developing a more balanced community in terms of equal opportunities. As long as the North experiences these difficulties, parents will not want or be able to send their children to school. As long as banditry continues, there can be plenty of crimes against students, teachers, and schools. It’s definitely something to work on.
Of course, you need better infrastructure. Given the lack of schools in the North, we can’t expect children to travel such enormous distances – at least not by much. So we need more schools in this area. But we would also need a more developed infrastructure in the South. More resources too. This includes teachers because if we don’t have teachers, there can be no schooling either.
It would therefore require a better society in terms of equality of means and a better infrastructure coupled with more teachers. How to achieve it? It’s quite difficult to say. Because there can be several ways to get there. What seems like a vicious cycle is the fact that for these things to improve, we would also need better education. So we can perfectly see how difficult it can be.
There is another thing, however. As long as there is insufficient funding, there can be no development. So that’s another way to solve this problem – give more funds for education. Of course, this may also mean international funding and the privatization of schools so that they can be run with larger budgets, as has already been suggested.
Of course, there are probably tons of other actions society and government can take. There is no way to write everything in one article. So we’ve covered the biggest issues and how to deal with them.
Conclusion
The Nigerian education system is far from perfect. In fact, he is going through a crisis that can shape the future of the country. After all, the foundation on which we build something becomes either the strongest link or the weakest link in the chain. So we have to make sure that we are building solid foundations. This can be done through education and quality as well. We have to put the children in school and teach them something. We have to make sure the environment is safe for them.
Of course, there is no single course of action that can lead us to the appropriate part of our journey. We just know what the end goal is for us to strive for – a quality education for every child. It is something that we, as a society, should put in our priorities. The future is in the hands of those who are still children. We need to make sure we put them on the right path to a prosperous future. This requires quality education – a right for every child.
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