UNESCO describes literacy as a fundamental human right and the foundation for lifelong learning. It also ascribed it as being paramount to social and human development in its ability to transform lives.
It wasn’t surprising when Kaduna States commissioner for education, science and technology, Dr. Shehu Adamu disclosed to news men that “pupils had developed habit of leaving school immediately after meal under the guise of going to drink water.” My conclusion towards this report was, “what on earth does the commissioner expects.”
Increasing literacy is actually beyond opting for free meals. The primacies should have been more intense, at least these suggested questions should have been addressed: Do we have the adequate infrastructure and facilities to encourage learning? Are the teachers motivated? And do we have plans for after school.
A keen look into these questions will aid achieve the goals of literacy. You can imagine giving out free meals in dilapidated classrooms. Another case of attracting pupils with free meals to schools where teachers are yet to be paid their salaries – what a miss.
The first question posed will go a long way to encourage learning. We will all agree with me that all our citadels of learning (from the primary to the university level) are in a state of mockery. There have been cases whereby, students are mandated to buy chalks, broom, dusters and yet government taught it wise to have chosen free meals as its priority. Even in the tertiary institutions, most especially the science based courses, materials to carryout researches are not readily available, and in some cases students opt for stores in advance countries to have access to these materials. Enough cases of pupils eating the free meals in classes without chairs or under the tree have also been reported.
It has also been reported that the large span of land that has been allocated to schools are now been sold to raise residential buildings, neglecting the fact that a school constitute not just classrooms, but also farm lands and recreational atmosphere. Government should consider setting up policies that will reshape the educational system.
Are the teachers motivated? No, I choose. Motivation of teachers in this contexts goes beyond their basic salaries it includes allowances such as medical, house, cars etc. We know of some states where teachers’ salaries are yet to be paid for months and yet pupils’ feeding still goes on. We found ourselves in a society where teachers are left to languish in poverty and government policies don’t extends its roots to this nation builders. Government should incorporate all these allowances into their schemes.
In addition, free seminars and workshops should be put in place to update the teachers. The type of teaching method adopted globally now is pedagogy; they should be exposed to this. Furthermore, teachers are not motivated when they realize that their research ends up on the shelf. Government should make use of the researches and promote its quality. Our researchers make finding nowadays just for promotion and not to solve the imminent problem. They can’t be blamed, at least the cobwebs on their previous finding is not a good story to tell.
After school? This question in its diverse construction among the Nigerian youths, government has taken with a hand of flippancy. Who wants to commit years to learning when you see political thugs better than Mr. B who holds three master degrees? Apart from this, our society has been so frustrating, that you find a situation where a trained medical doctor opts for a banking sector, a botanist opts for a construction company only to mention but a few, just because the government refuses to set its priorities right. Employment now carries this slogan “you have to know somebody that knows somebody somewhere”. All this have complicated our society, branding it more illiterate just because our spanners are in the hands of the geographers while our accounts are being managed by the biochemists.
On this note I strongly conform to the resolution of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) urging the federal government to declare a state of emergency in the educational sector, relinquishing the free meals and taking up imminent problems hindering literacy.
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