Another chance at school

Medinat Kanabe who recently visited an adult school, writes on a developing urge by Nigerian unlettered adults to take another shot at schooling.

UP until recently, Chinwe Obianuju was an illiterate who had never had any form of education. To take her out of the ‘hood,’ her husband enrolled her in an adult school; but she didn’t take it seriously, so he stopped paying her tuition. But Obianuju did not mind, as she was never interested in the first place.

Obianuju was however forced to make a u-turn one day. Hear her: “One day, I was disgraced as a result of my inability to read and write English, so I ran back to the school.  My husband insisted that he would not pay my tuition again, but I decided to shoulder the payment myself, not knowing that he didn’t want me to continue because he had gotten into a relationship.

“One day, I caught him sending a love SMS to his girlfriend; he was doing it in my presence because he didn’t know that I had learnt to read and write. In school we were also taught Mind Programme, which included how to relate with our spouses at home; so I didn’t quarrel with him, unlike before.

“Rather, I read out the text clearly and told him ‘well done o!’ He realised his folly, apologised and we made up.”

Now in her forties, Obianuju is proud of her achievement and now goes around encouraging her illiterate friends to go back to school.

On her part, Mrs Oluwatobi Jamiu said; “Since I started going to school, I have changed a lot. My children too noticed the changes in me. One day I was very sick but insisted on going to school. My children thought I was charmed because they knew the condition I was in. I threatened to sneak out unless they called my aunty (her teacher) to tell her I was sick, which they did before I stayed back home. I hate missing classes because I learn a lot at school.”

She, like Obianuju enrolled to learn to read and write after having all her children, and she is happy about it.

Another woman who gave a testimony of her new-found knowledge was Khadijat Musiliu, a trader. Musiliu told The Nation that she didn’t just learn how to read, write and speak good English but also grew her confidence and learnt to manage her business very well. “I learnt how to manage my business very well and respect my customers. It was raining one day and I went to my place of business in the rain. If it were before, I would have stayed back at home. The sale I made that day was unbelievable.”

As if echoing the feeling of the three respondents above, a professor of Curriculum and Science Education, Obafemi Awolowo University, Shola Ehindero, said when a person achieves adult literacy, he or she becomes happy.

 “The problem of inferiority complex will no longer be there. She may have had problems relating with her children and husband before, but she will now gain more confidence. She will not see herself as a burden to the children and husband. She may be very rich but that inferiority complex will be there, if she is an illiterate. So if she acquires these basic things where she can communicate confidently and with conviction, the family becomes one and they will be involved in collective decision-making.”

Expatiating further on the value of adult education and the best way to apply it, Ehindero said literacy is of different types and the concept of adult education should be regarded as basic literacy because there can be technological literacy, scientific literacy, medical literacy, literary literacy among others.

He said “The basic thing the adult goes through is the basic literacy because he or she is learning how to write and read.”

A nation of high level of illiteracy

In 2013, Mr Nyesom Wike, then acting as Supervisory Minister of Education declared that the number of adult illiterates in Nigeria had risen to an alarming 35 million. That was from the previously established figure of 25 million in 1997, justifying inadvertently a strong need for stakeholders to redouble effort at educating the adult citizenry.

The minister, who made this known at that year’s International Literacy Day, also added that an embarrassing 10.5 million children were out of school; most probably on their way to swelling the current figure (of 35million). He therefore identified literacy as one of the key solutions to national challenges of insecurity, poverty, poor health condition amongst others.

He also said that eradicating illiteracy in the country should not be left in the hands of the federal, state and local governments alone, stressing that such era was gone.

As if corroborating the minister’s declaration, Ehindero said one of the major problems Nigeria is having is high illiteracy level. He said a country with low level of literacy is very likely to have high level of corruption and explosion. For instance, he said if President Buhari, despite his good intentions of fighting corruption, is not able to carry the populace along, all sorts of negative consequences will set in, including superstition, corruption and the likes.

He concluded that the greatest problem any country can have is a prevalence of illiterate citizens, and lamented the current situation, where the government is investing massively on higher education at the detriment of basic education.