Mind The Gap

Nigeria is losing an entire generation. We are touted as Africa's most populous nation, with over 60% of our population under 35. This seems like an obvious advantage, because these are virile strong men and women, who will charge ahead, building the future. There is an underside.

I felt them before I saw them. A pair of eyes, gazing plaintively at me and willing me to turn towards it. I did. The eyes belonged to the face of a young girl pressed against my window at the side of my car at the traffic light at Ikate, roundabout in Lekki. The lights were red, and as I sunk into a reverie, those eyes called me back to the present and willed me to notice them, as a voice faint through the window, beneath my radio blaring and the hum of my car air conditioner declared: "God bless you mummy, help me please, God will bless you…" and a string of other blessings and prayers in my favour. I felt irritated at the intrusion of the face pressed so close, only separated from my space by the glass of the window. As I looked around, there was another face at the window on the other side, and a few others by the cars ahead of me. The young ladies wore hijabs. At the side of the road, there were some older women, probably in their thirties or forties, seated on the floor in conversation, carrying suckling infants. They were probably the mothers or guardians of the children on the road. There were at least fifteen children at that light, male and female. They looked like they were between the ages of five and thirteen years. They worked the cars quickly, spending a minute or two at the window of each car before moving along to the next, depending on the response of the occupant. The lights soon turned amber, and the children scampered to the side walk quickly as the vehicles revved up before the lights turned green. This scene is repeated at virtually every light in Ikoyi and Victoria Island, all day, everyday.

At Oshodi, a major bus terminal in Lagos, there are young boys and girls, roaming around with dazed eyes, many high and dangerous. High on Tramadol, codeine, and whatever drugs are available. They lurk, ready to dispossess passers-by of their phones and valuables. They gather in gangs, armed with knives and sharp objects. The younger children  are (between eight and thirteen years old) more dangerous than the older ones when encountered at night. Perhaps because they cannot fully grasp the implications of their actions. In an epidemic that is going on in the streets of Lagos, many of the youth are caught in the quagmire of drug addiction, living violent lives on the streets. They are our strength, our youth and our future. These children are not going to school, they are not being educated nor prepared for the future.

Only about 39.4 percent of Nigerian children of primary school age were enrolled in school last year, according to a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICs) 5, of 2016 and 2017 conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and other partners, about 60 percent of children of school age are out of school.

 (https://guardian.ng/features/education/only-39-4-primary-school-age-children-currently-enrolled/). The research above ranked the Southwest second highest in enrolment, after the southeast which had over sixty percent enrolment. If Lagos (Lagos is located in the Southwest) is as bad as this, how would the children in the Northeast fare with an enrolment rate of thirty something percent?

This assumes that those enrolled are getting a good quality education. Most of them are not. I interview many job applicants and I cringe each time they say "furnitures" (about 98% of the time). I recently drove past an advertisement by Jiji.ng, on a bill board in Ikorodu Road. It said: "Lands for Sale", on the same day, I came across a Cowbell Milk billboard advertisement, it read: "We go the extra miles with you". I f you cannot see what is wrong with the grammar in the two sentences I have used as examples above, then I rest my case for the gravity of the situation. Basic primary education, when available is often of very low quality. Last year, I hired a twenty-three year old woman as domestic help. She could neither read nor write but was intent on getting an education. Since she was small of physical stature, we thought we would send her to a state-run primary school. We identified one called Ireti Primary School on Menkuwen Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. Very excited, she went to school the first day, but came back crest-fallen. She said the students played all day, while the teachers lounged and chatted. At the end of the school day, the teachers gathered the children who had paid them for private lessons and then began to teach only those ones. She never went back there. Only the rich can afford a good education, thereby widening the gap between rich and poor. Yet, education is one of the quickest ways for people to close this gap.

With a teeming population of ignorant youth (over sixty percent of Nigeria's population is under thirty five, this means we have over one hundred million youth), Nigeria is a ticking time bomb. unless the Federal and state governments declare a national emergency in education. There must be a path forward to engage and equip our young. Otherwise we will fall prey to propaganda, religious bias and tribal wars, which could lead to an implosion. We can no longer rely on oil. We need an alternative path because technology companies are rapidly displacing oil companies as the companies with the largest revenues, while oil companies are rebranding themselves as energy companies, and investing in alternative energy, the writing on the wall is clear: 'Knowledge is the new oil'. What must we do? I have listed out a few ideas below on how we can begin to tackle this situation.

1. I believe that the first thing the government needs to do is to increase the budget for education. In a 2011 article, The Independent featured the eleven best school systems in the world ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/11-best-school-systems-in-the-world-a7425391.html) Most of the governments in these country invested heavily in education and most of the students went to state-run schools. (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.PRIM.PC.ZS?view=chart)
2. Secondly, Nigeria needs to elevate the status and reward for teachers, making it attractive to be an educator. In her book, "The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got that Way" by Amanda Ripley, the author attributes much of Finland's successful educational system to the selection process for teachers and the rigorous training teachers are given. The smartest people go into teaching and they are highly honoured and highly paid. Some of the schools for teaching only accept twenty percent of their applicants.
3. Actively look for partnerships and provide further incentives for the private sector in education, also provide more incentives for investment in education.
4. Set up regulated teacher training colleges, with cutting-edge teaching methods
5. Invest in research on education and teaching methods.
6. Develop home-grown methods of education that takes into account the varying cultures of Nigeria (e.g. How to educate nomads, or perhaps business certificates after junior secondary three for those that want to pursue a career in trading)
7. Incorporate compulsory teacher-training courses into every curriculum in the universities, so every graduate has a certificate in teacher training by the time they graduate.
8. Rejig the National Youth Service Corps to cover only teaching and healthcare. We have about one million eight hundred thousand graduates per year in Nigeria, according to Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/157886-1-8-million-nigerians-enter-job-market-yearly-says-okonjo-iweala.html). If the graduates are posted as teachers and healthcare workers (for those in the health professions only), to the thirty-six states in Nigeria, we would have an influx of about fifty thousand graduates in each state already with teacher-training to start bridging the gap.

As Bill Gates succinctly put it to Nigeria: "The most important choice you can make is to maximize your greatest resource, the Nigerian people. " (https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/speech-by-bill-gates-at-the-national-economic-council.html). We as a nation need to think strategically at this pivotal moment. As we go to the ballot box next year, we need to examine our options carefully and see who has a strong plan for education. If you are thinking of running for office, you must have a clear path out of this emergency. Without a strong plan for education, even with a prosperous economy, Our strength could very well be our undoing. We must mind the gap, and close it.