Audu Qudus, a Junior Secondary School (JSS 2) pupil, would sit the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in a year to mark the completion of his nine-year basic education. In preparation for secondary education, pupils learn to read and write independently at this level. But Audu can barely piece alphabets together to pronounce words, making it impossible for him to read or write independently.
“It’s always difficult when I try to read,” he said in the Yoruba language. “It makes me feel bad and ashamed of myself. Sometimes, it looks like I won’t know how to read because I don’t know where to start or who to run to for help.”
Most of his classmates at the Ojuolape Junior Community Grammar School, Ifelodun 2 Local Government Area (LGA), Kwara State, have similar challenges –they all struggle with the foundational learning skills of literacy and numeracy skills. Their ability to write depends only on a chalkboard or another notebook where they can copy alphabet by alphabet.
Adesope Saheed who teaches Social Studies in the school is well aware of this challenge. He said the teachers are also trying their best but are constrained by multiple factors including truant pupils and inadequate teaching and learning materials.
“When students are not showing their interest in education, teachers are left with a great task to solve,” he said. “The performance of students in terms of their low ability to read is highly a defect from home where there’s no motivation or charge for academic pursuit. When this becomes the case, teachers can only put in their best. And we are doing that because few of them still show a positive reaction towards their educational life.”
When construction isn’t enough
Three years ago, the school, located on the Ilorin-Osogbo Expressway, constructed three additional classrooms. 50 desks and table tennis materials were also provided, all to increase access to quality education.
However, this reporter observed that the construction and the provision of desks have hardly improved the learning conditions in the school. The facilities, for instance, are prone to vandalism due to the lack of a fence for the school. The laboratories observed in the senior secondary school section of the school also appear lifeless with dust and cobwebs dotting the entire hall.
Pupils in this school make up part of the millions of Nigerian children who leave basic education level without proficiency in basic literacy.
According to a Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), only 49 per cent of children achieve “basic proficiency in literacy” and 55 per cent in numeracy at this level. The report added that at least 70 per cent of the children cannot read “meaningfully or solve simple math problems”.
There are several reasons for this problem, the UNICEF report noted, enumerating them to include low public spending, inadequate, under-prepared and unqualified teachers, and school’s lack of appropriate, inclusive, and child-centred learning.
In the Kwara state communities covered for this story, truant pupils, absentees, insufficient teachers and inadequate learning materials have also contributed to putting pupils in the communities at a learning disadvantage.
All three schools visited in Ifelodun 2 Local Government of Kwara State have insufficient teachers, pupils, parents and teachers told this reporter.
The schools visited are; Ojuolape Community Grammar School, Omupo Community Grammar School and Alakuko Community LGEA.
Absentee teachers
At the Alakuko Community School, there are insufficient teachers and the school relies on corp members of the National Youth Service (NYSC) to fill the gaps. The reporter gathered that the school currently has no teachers for Physics, Literature-in-English and Christian Religious Studies (CRS).
An NYSC corp member who identified herself simply as Peace noted there was no English Teacher in the school before she was posted there. Knowing the importance of the subject for the students, the youth corp member who was supposed to teach Accounting, volunteered to start taking the English Language.
“When I was posted, I informed the principal that I wanted to take Accounting. Later on, I found out that there was no English teacher. Considering the relevance of the subject to the lives of these students, I had to take it up,” she said.
Ms Peace’s national youth service only lasts 12 months and the student would go back to schooling without an English teacher once she is done with her service. Meanwhile, it is compulsory for the students to pass the English Language in both their Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) and the tertiary education entrance examination – the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) – before they can secure admissions to further their education. This, perhaps, explains why the state has seen a decreasing pass rate in the students’ performance in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
The school principal, Emmanuel Odunayo, expressed concern that teachers usually resist posting to the school because it is located in a rural community. He noted that he has had to take up teaching Civic Education as there was no teacher for the subject. He described the school’s current situation as a ‘big slap’ to the embodiment of education.
“In this school and because of the community’s status as a village, teachers always try to avoid getting posted here. Aside from that, we’ve tabled our problems to the board in concern numerous times which we’ve received little recognition,” Mr Odunayo said.
One official who didn’t want to be named offered an explanation as to why teachers resist postings to rural schools. The official noted that most of the teachers live in Ilorin, the state capital, which is over 15 kilometres away from this community. The cost of transportation, the official notes, ranges between N2,000 to N3,000.
Without additional benefits or allowances for taking up roles far away from their homes, the teachers, therefore, chose to resist postings to these communities.
Truant Pupils
However, teachers are not the only ones who stay away from duty, this reporter found. Truant pupils and students have also contributed to the educational challenge in the community.
For instance, Waheed Abayomi, a student of Alakuko Community School, doesn’t go to school on select days. Master Abayomi said he doesn’t attend school on market days when he accompanies his father to sell farm produce.
“Every morning, I have to visit the farm with my father before coming to school,” he said. “On days when we spend much longer time on the farm, I’ll skip school. On kara (market days), I don’t go to school because we sell pepper at the market.”
The Yoruba teacher at the Ojuolape school, Mrs Adenuga Daramlola, also said truancy increases during the farming season as many pupils skip school for farm, a major economic activity in this rural community.
Another student, Joshua Adeoye, corroborated this. Master Adeoye whose parents operate a private hospital in the community noted that absent students in school increases when cashews are up for cultivation in late November and December.
Inadequate Learning Materials
Monica Adeyemi, another JSS 2 pupil of the Ojuolape Community Grammar School, said they study an average of two subjects a day because the teachers hardly show up to school. “Even when they come, most of them write notes without explaining. Some spend less time with us compared to what they should have in the first place,” the pupil said.
Audu Lawal, a mathematics teacher at Omupo Community Grammar School noted that the lack of teaching materials, especially textbooks, has affected students’ learning of mathematics.
“A teacher can only try his best in the absence of a textbook. When students cannot relate to class exercises at their respective homes, they won’t be able to recall what has been learned in school. For a subject like mathematics, a lack of textbooks prevents students from revising on their own. This in most cases leads to the mass failure we see today and likewise why students hate mathematics,” he said.
The Principal of the Alakuko Community School, Segun Adenuga, added that the pressing challenge of the school is also the lack of a fence which exposes the school properties to vandalism. He pointed out cases where unidentified persons visit the school premises at night and exhibit acts such as smoking, sleeping, and all sorts.
Educationally disadvantaged pupils
For their level, most of the pupils are education deficient as they lack the ability to read or write, a situation that may go on to affect the future of their education pursuit. Education deficit is the difference between the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes of pupils and the actual educational attainment of the pupils.
According to a UNICEF report in 2023 titled “Nigeria Education Fact Sheets”, there’s a 53 per cent chance of children in rural areas completing Junior Secondary School while they have 37 per cent chance of Senior Secondary School completion. Also, children from the “poorest” households have a 27 per cent rate of Junior School completion while a staggering 16 per cent for their Senior School completion. Categorically, educationally disadvantaged students mostly belong to the “rural” and “poorest” group.
Nigeria currently has over 20 million out-of-school children, one of the highest in the world. However, the situation at the Ojuolape Junior Community Grammar School threatens to throw even more children out of school.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, recently raised alarm on the high number of out-of-school children, expressing worry about the possibility of the unschooled children becoming a recruitment base for bandits.
In some parts of Nigeria, persistent insecurity that has led to the shutdown of schools is the leading cause of out-of-school children.
Poor education funding in Kwara, Nigeria
Kwara state has the 2nd highest number of basic schools in North-Central Nigeria, and the 10th highest in Nigeria, according to a 2021 report by the Kwara Education Transformative Agenda (KWETA). The state manages more than 2,000 public primary and secondary schools, with more than 548,000 students.
Meanwhile, Kwara state’s allocation for the education sector has fallen below the 15-20 per cent recommended by the United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO). The allocations for the sector in the last four years has hovered below 10 per cent, the highest being 10 per cent in 2021. In 2023, 7.07 per cent was allocated to education while 2022 and 2020 received 7 per cent and 8.1 per cent respectively.
However, the allocation only reached 15 per cent this year. Looking at its vast education population and the absence of adequate funding, educationally disadvantaged students have mostly been on the cutting edge.
It’s a similar story of funding education at the federal level, continually failing to fund quality education as guaranteed in the Universal Basic Education Commission Act (2004). The Act stipulates a free and compulsory basic education for young Nigerians. The education budget at the highest level of government in the last four years has also hovered between 6 and 8 per cent. In 2020, the allocations were 6.7 per cent and fell to 5.68 per cent in 2021. It rose to 7.2 per cent in 2022 before recording its highest of 8.8 per cent in 2023.
The sector received the highest allocation ever in 2023. Yet, it was only 6.39 per cent of the 2024 (N1.54 trillion) was budgeted for education. UBEC, the agency responsible for grassroots education was allocated N251.5 billion.
Strategies for Intervention
A Kwara-based educational consultant, Omowunmi Adesuyi, noted that the unwillingness of state governments to adequately fund some projects in schools is a major concern in the sector, particularly at the basic education level.
She added that governments at all levels need to be more concerned about educational funding, especially in marginalized communities, pointing out that the lack of learning materials often results in students’ unwillingnness to attend school.
“The government should create a more concerned educational agency that solicits funds for infrastructure projects and so on. For the less privileged student, there should be scholarship projects that are majorly for the educationally disadvantaged students which includes grants and other forms of financial assistance for the students. This will reduce their chance of dropping out of school,” she said
Mrs Adesuyi also noted the need to sensitize and improve how students view education. According to her, only when students help themselves internally can other external effects produce the desired result.
“Charity they say begins at home. Before quality education is rendered to students, the students themselves should be able to see the importance of the education given to them. This has been the main struggle in Kwara, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the quality of education while the students who receive the education don’t see the importance of education. All they believe in is farming and petty trading. Not just the student should be made to see the importance of education but the parents, and also the community at large,” she explained.
She added that most public school teachers have a nonchalant attitude to teaching which is sometimes borne from negative attitudes from students. The educational expert concluded that in conjunction with the provision of teacher training and adequate teaching materials, teachers need to be trained in emotional intelligence and mental well-being.
This report was produced as part of the Liberalist Centre’s Journalism for Liberty Fellowship project with funding support from Atlas Network.
