The three tiers of governments have been enjoined to fulfil their mandates by recruiting and paying education trained facilitators for the country to move forward.
An Educationist and the Bariyun of Iyi, Chief Gabriel Adeleke, made the observation in an interview with FREEDOM ONLINE.
Chief Adeleke said Nigeria is the continent’s biggest and most advanced economy but its literacy rate still lags behind some of Africa’s troubled economies.
According to him, ” it has invested billions of Naira in education but it still fails to achieve the expected result.
” Its schools and university standards are too low, with the exceptions of a few that strive to meet international standards. Furthermore, University fees are too high for the poor majority. Only one in six students gets to university and a third drop out within a year. Statistics show that more than 30 million Nigerians especially women and children are outside education , training or employment.
He went further, ” 60 per cent Nigerians have no qualifications at all, 16 per cent of Matric graduates are likely to get a job within a year of leaving school, and 60 per cent will still be jobless after five years . Officially, 54 per cent of Nigerians are unemployed and actual unemployment is projected to be much higher than that “.
The Bariyun of Oyo, also a Justice of the Peace (JP), pointed out that reading and writing are fundamental human rights as they allow people to take control of their lives through being able to vote , fill in an application form, do banking, read instruction manuals and other activities.
” This best explains why the nation should step up its activities towards repositioning education for better”.
The process, the Educationist submitted , should start as early as possible with a sound basic education system and the establishment of a culture of reading at home, which can only be done by adults who themselves know how to read a d understand the value of reading.
