Nigeria: Literacy - No Justification for Marginalising Women, Girls

Literacy is the ability to write and numerate with understanding, and being able to use the skill in one's daily socio-economic activities. Therefore, a literate person is the one that can read, write and numerate with understanding in one local language (mother tongue) and can use the skill in or her daily socio-economic activities.

The National Commission For Mass Literacy, Adult And Non Formal Education (NMEC), is the federal government agency saddled with the onerous task of making literate all those who for one reason or the other did not or cannot benefit from the formal school system. These acceding the acting executive secretary of the commission, Jubrin Paiko, include out-of school youths, children in the street, women in purdah , victims of teenage motherhood, nomadic illiterate people, almajiris and other migrant fishing folks. Unfortunately, the commission has realised that about 46 per cent of Nigerians are presently illiterate, according to the 2006 National Census figures released by the National Population Commission (NPC). Stakeholders agreed that this is not healthy for any sustainable development.

Therefore, for Nigeria to get out of this huge problem, the NMEC says there must be a renewed energy, expected to make at least 10 million Nigerians literate on a yearly basis for the next 12 years. The commission also needs to train a total of 200,000 facilitators and at least 150, 000 illiterates in each state of the federation per year would be targeted.

Nigeria has not particularly had a good record as far as literacy is concerned. There are indicators to show how backward the country is in terms of providing basic literacy and numeracy for the teeming population, not only for the children, but amazingly the adult group. Nigeria is signatory to many international treaties, in which heads of governments make commitments with a view to providing quality basic education, yet statistics released by international agencies like the UNECSO has painted a very gloomy picture of the country's progress towards providing the illiterate population with basic education.

For instance, the UNECSO has given countries like Nigeria till 2015 to half illiteracy through the Education For All (EFA) as well as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). All these are global goals of targeting the marginalised and educationally disadvantaged groups, especially in the developing countries, of which Nigeria belong. Unfortunately again, statistics has placed Nigeria at the bottom of the table, where even war-torn countries have made considerable progress in providing its citizens with basic literacy.

As the nation joins the rest of the world to mark this year's International Day of Literacy, a call has been made for an all inclusive education, a system that will ensure women and the girl child are not left out. The day is commemorated every 8th of September internationally to once again draw attention of stakeholders in education industry on the urgent need to mop up all those who by one reason or the other, did not go to school and consequently are illiterates . "Literacy and women's empowerment" is the theme of International Literacy Day 2010.

Director General of UNESCO, Ms Irina Bakova in her message to the world on the literacy day observed that "while women's empowerment is at the core of the global development agenda, girls still account for more than half of the 67.4 million out-of-school children in the world, and two-thirds of the 796 million adult illiterates are female.

"This is an intolerable situation reflecting one of the most persistent injustices of our times: unequal access to education. Illiteracy keeps women marginalized and constitutes a foremost obstacle to reducing extreme poverty in a technology-driven world where reading, writing and numeracy are indispensable for enjoying basic rights and opportunities."

As Ms Bokova stressed in her message, "Investing in women's literacy carries very high returns: it improves livelihoods, leads to better child and maternal health, and favours girls' access to education. In short, newly literate women have a positive ripple effect on all development indicators. This international day aims to mobilize everyone's attention to the urgent need for increased commitment to literacy, especially for girls and women."

Some 796 million adults still lack literacy skills. About Two-thirds are women. The International Literacy Day global celebrations will therefore focus on the transformation literacy can bring to women's lives and those of their families, communities and societies".

To drive home the message, this year's events would ,highlight the critical role that literacy plays in empowering women, who make up 64% of the adult population who are unable to read and write.

According to UIS data, women account for about two-thirds of the world's 796 million illiterate adults. There has been virtually no progress in reducing the share of illiterate women over the past 20 years (63-64%) despite a steady decrease in the total number of adults lacking basic reading and writing skills.

The minister of state for education, Barrister Kenneth Gbag in his message at the pre-event press briefing in Abuja stressed that attacking illiteracy and poverty has both national and international dimension adding that half of the world's population, including Nigeria lives in poverty. Of the 46 per cent of the illiterate Nigerians about 60 per cent of them are women and that explains why poverty is ravaging the country.

He said; "As illiteracy can be said to be second most worrisome problem following poverty, in the country, literacy skills are becoming more necessary than ever before. It is my plea to Nigerians to help shape non-formal education and educational system for National development".

The NMEC executive, Paiko also commented on some progress made so far in creating awareness, especially through the literacy by radio programme and expanding access. In addition to providing logistics to aid the adult literacy programme at the state level, he pleaded for more political will to support the commission by investing more in non formal education to assist it carry out its mandate successfully and as well, help Nigeria out of the woods of illiteracy.