THE NIGERIAN LITERACY SCENE

Because of need for rise in academic standards in the country, series of educational programmes had been launched and among is the Universal Primary Education programme in Nigeria in 1976, primary school enrollment rose sharply, and by 1982/83 had reached 14.6 million. But this figure dropped to 14.3 million in 1983V84.

This trend which was attributable to economic slum as well as to cost-recovery levies imposed on parents by various state governments continued for the next three years as follows; 13 million in 1984/85, 11. 5 million in 1985/86 and 11.27 million in 1986/87.

However, there was a rise to 12.2 million in 1987/88. This upward trend in enrollment has been maintained till now, signifying that the determined efforts of the Federal and State Governments to stem the earlier decline are yielding dividends. But -not all children who should be in school are there. For instance, statistics for 1992 shows that of the 18.2 million in 6 to 11 years age bracket, only 14,6 million, that is 80.4 percent were in attendance at the regular school. With regard to retention, it is estimated that 44 percent of boys and 44. 4 percent of girls fail to complete their primary school. In some parts of the country, the percentage of girls who leave school prematurely is as high as 50 percent.

According to General Abacha,26 only 52 percent of Nigeria's adult population are believed to be literate. The percentage distribution is 62.5 percent for males and 39.5 percent for females. Besides non-literate adults, there is an estimated 37.5 percent of school age children who are out of school either because they have never enrolled or have dropped out. In order that these 8,3 million children out of an estimated school age population of 22 million, do not grow up to swell the population of illiterates or semi-illiterates,  their educational needs have to be mandatorily catered for. The planned actions should ensure that all children of primary school age who are not in school receive non-formal education of comparable learning standard. In Nigeria, however, the following plans are underway to address the literacy problems:

The setting up of a National Commission for mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education in 1990 has had the effect of accelerating the pace of the literacy efforts. In addition, the following are being planned to achieve literacy goal in Nigeria:

1.         Establishment of low-cost community - Early Child Care Development and Education (ECCDE) centres in rural areas and urban slums.

The plan is to establish 27,200 of such centres by the year 2000 A.D.

2.         Establishment of 31 model nursery schools - One in each state.

3.         Pre-service and in-service training of teachers and education inspectors.

4.         Strengthening of head-teachers management capacity.

5.         Embarking with UNICEF, in a school - community education project which aims at advocacy and social mobilization, capacity building, supply of educational materials, provision of hand-dug wells, first-aid kits, toilet facilities and agricultural inputs.

6.         Provision of textbooks with part of the $120 million World Bank Loan Nigeria secured for the improvement of primary education. Ninety-eight million textbooks will be supplied to primary schools over the next six years.

Non-formal education strategies being adopted partly in collaboration with UNICEF are mainly two:

1.         Women education project designed to improve the status of women and children by providing women with skills in literacy, numeracy and life skills; and

2.         The Girl-child Education Pilot Project, which involves the establishment of training sites for girls at the community level with full involvement.