Protecting Child Right To Education In Nigeria

The Sub-Saharan Africa (Where Nigeria belongs) is the area with the most uneducated children of primary school age, numbering over 30million, out of which about 12 million girls are at risk of never receiving an education.

By Charles Iyare

Children are leaders of tomorrow, and as it were, education is the key to unlock the potential of every child in realising his or her dream.

Education is critical to the overall growth of any society; therefore non access to education can negate the aspiration of citizens of a country.

Child Right to Education remains imaginary for millions of children around the world. In Nigeria, poor governance, and corruption has led to the increase of school drop-outs, which in turn forms an army of children forced into labour.

Education is the key to unlock the fog that blocks the atmosphere of creativity and empowerment of a people.
Education helps to distinguish people who possess the capacity to transform and enhance economic growth in a society.

It is a tool for advancement and strategic leadership. Therefore, when children leave school at a tender age or never attend any, it endangers the socio-economic development of a country.

The Sub-Saharan Africa (Where Nigeria belongs) is the area with the most uneducated children of primary school age, numbering over 30million, out of which about 12 million girls are at risk of never receiving an education.

The latter may not be unconnected with the cultural and religious beliefs, and the challenges of gender, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. This may leave the future of many children all over the world hanging in helpless circumstance.

It is on UNICEF record that 40% of Nigerian children (between 6-11years old) do not attend primary school.

The Northern region has the lowest school attendance rate in the country, particularly for girls. Despite a significant increase in enrolment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school in Nigeria.

Over the past 16 years, Nigeria has continued to dominate nations with high rate of children-out-of-school.
A report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) further proved that one out of every five Nigerian children is out of school.

Nigeria is globally accounting for 47% of children (10.5million children) out of school. It has become a burden to ensure that every child has access to not just school, but quality learning with basic modern infrastructure.

The above UNESCO statistics only shows the level of unwillingness by government to create the enabling environment that will help to implant child right to education in Nigeria.

Many of these children already understand the importance of acquiring quality education as the way forward to attain future leadership, yet they are compelled to adapt to poor standard of leaving, without the option of right to education.

Children are made to abandon their education and forced into child labour with the aim of fending for their parents as a form of economic support.

The decline in child education can be attributed to factors ranging from lack of infrastructure, mismanagement of education funds, insufficient teachers, poor training of teaching staff, and other forms of corruption.

This has created a gap between Nigeria and other developing economy around the world. It can be concluded that the poor management in the education sector is part of the reason for Nigeria’s over dependent on consumption and importation, rather than production and exportation.

Having come this far, it is expected that government through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) should improve and enforce the laws that regulates policies for basic education.

There should be limitation in excessive bottlenecks that may strangle the process of actualizing the goal of education for all (EFA) which is equally in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Child Right to Education should be considered as the gateway for nation building and a remedy for transformation and effective leadership in Nigeria.

Government should show its readiness to improve on basic education in its yearly budget, by investing hugely in academic infrastructure, and ensure that hard working children have special scholarship packages. This will spur motivation on parents to send their children to school.

While we continue to battle the various challenges faced by children in a developing nation like Nigeria, government should seize the initiative to put Nigeria in the global landmark of future leadership by fully enforcing child right to education.

Government should prioritize the funding of education, create a serine learning environment, and sensitize the people of the importance of encouraging their child to go to school.

The child labour laws should be strengthened to punish offenders. All hands must be on deck to secure and guarantee the overall welfare of the Nigerian child.

Charles Iyare is Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), in Benin-City. www.aneej.org