Nigerian students facing serious learning crisis – UNICEF

*Says, 70% of students in Nigeria
cannot perform basic numeric task

By Doosuur Iwambe, Abuja

United Nations Children’s Funds, UNICEF, has lamented that school children in Nigeria are facing serious learning crisis whereby learning is not taking place, even for children that are in school.

According to the UN body, about 70% of under 10-year -old school children in Nigeria cannot understand a simple sentence or perform basic numeracy task.

Speaking during a two day media dialogue on Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, organized by UNICEF in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Information, Chief of UNICEF Field Office, Kano Rahama Farah maintained Nigeria need to do more to scale-up foundational literacy and numeracy.

While stressing that education is the fundamental right of every child, he said achieving basic learning outcomes at the foundational level of education is key in addressing the challenge.

Farah further disclosed that the
right is well-articulated in the  UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the (CRC) which guides the work of UNICEF in executing it mandate.

“In executing its mandate of promoting, protecting, advocating, and collaborating with partners for the realisation of the rights of children, UNICEF has been collaborating with the Government of Nigeria to improve outcomes in the education sector.

“Progress is being made; yet much more needs to be done.

“For instance, as is the case with some countries globally, and in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria faces a learning crisis in which learning is not taking place, even for children that are in school.

“UNICEF is already supporting  the Government of Nigeria to improve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy through tailor-made, teaching learning practices, such as Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) and Reading and Numeracy Activities (RANA)”, he said.     

He urged journalists at the dialogue to utilise the opportunity by mobilising stakeholders, parents, teachers and everyone to join in the worthy cause of addressing the challenge of learning poverty in Nigeria.

On his part, Dr Chidiebere Ezinwa said, more than 30,000 children in Nigeria die everyday from preventable causes that go unnoticed.

In his presentation titled, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as child rights’, Dr Ezinwa cautioned parents against treating children as objects.

He said that children are not objects who belong to their parents but human beings and individuals with their own rights that should be protected at all cost.

Dr Ezinwa who reeled out some of the SDGs to include quality education, good health and well being amongst others said, it was unfortunate that about 258 million children were reported to be out of school in 2018.

He said, “Between the ages of 15- 49, 258 million children and youths were still out of school in 2018 while nearly one fifth of global population is on that age group. 19.4 million children do not receive essential vaccine by 1 year old.

“One out of three children live on extreme poverty . 10% of the world population still live in extreme poverty , struggling to fullfil basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation.

“Existence of poverty means denial of rights . Poverty is a major factor in denial of some of children’s rights.

“144 million children under 5 years of age were affected by stunting in 2019, with three quarters living in southern Asia and sub-sahara Africa. In 2019 6.9% (47m), children under 5 years of age were affected by wasting or acute under nutrition”.

Earlier, UNICEF communication specialist, Geoffrey Njoku said the SDGs cannot be achieved without focusing on the childrens rights.

He emphasised the need to refocus on creating good learning environment to ensure that children who are in school are able to read and write.