Education for All Goals Standards - Report Example

EDUCATION FOR ALL GOALS By Student’s name Code+ course name Professor’s name University name City, State Date EDUCATION FOR ALL GOALS Education For All (EFA) are standards set apart to govern education policies systems, and structures of 164 countries that agreed to take part. Indeed, they were intended to run between 2000 and 2015 culminating in 15 years. As a benchmarking tool, six goals were set to regulate and define a successful system by 2015 (Hutton 2014). These goals included: the expansion of early childhood and care education and achievement of universal primary education that would be free. Also, it provided guaranteed access to vocational and life skills to youth and adults, attaining 50% reduction illiteracy in adults by 2015. More goals included achieving gender parity and equality between male and female counterparts and further improving the quality of education given to children, adults, and youth (Sayed and Ahmed 2015). However, Nigeria has been experiencing a lot of challenges in meeting this goal despite a consistent increase in its per capita income up to 2014. In rankings of specific targets, Nigeria has failed and has been viewed far from achieving any of the goals. Indeed, failure may be attributed to some challenges, which the country faces that include poverty, lack of sufficient funding from the government, corruption, high student to teacher ratio and child labour (Ametepee and Anastasiou 2015). Also, insecurity in the northern regions of the country, poor infrastructure and cultural barriers such as female hindrance from participating in education have hindered the country its EFA goals. In this study, the focus will lie majorly on goal two which is the attainment of free universal education, and goal six which discusses improving the quality of education offered. It will also address the frustrating factors to this goal and their impact. Nevertheless, the study will first examine the UNESCO contextual background. Also, it will review the Nigerian education system and how it has evolved in brief and how the neighbouring countries are faring in the quest to achieve these goals. However, EFA study has been motivated by the need for education to be part of the core requirements of all human beings. It also aims at enhancing the growth of the education sector in Nigeria after the inception of the education for all goals, the challenges it has faced and the way forward to achieve these aims. In essence, it is vital for education to be integrated into one’s life since it enables people to improve their quality of life by increasing their creativeness. Also, adequate education improves individual bargaining power and eventually progress the economic performance of the nation. When an education system fails or is unable to meet the global standards or needs, necessary action must be put into place to ensure that the problem is corrected before it becomes a major issue. Nigeria, for example, seems to be facing a myriad of challenges and levels of illiteracy have been increasing rapidly. These problems have caused the former and if mitigated, the education sector in the country will thrive. United Nations under UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) initiated the EFA study. Its main aim was to provide efficient learning requirements to children, youth, and adults from all walks of life from both genders. These goals were created in correspondence to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) two and three which were concerned with universal primary education and gender parity (Roby, Erickson and Nagaishi 2016). The goals commenced in 2000 as a way of improving the educational sector that was ailing. Therefore, UNESCO was chosen to coordinate and oversee the member’s efforts in developing the education sector in their respective countries. In fact, through the global monitoring reports, UNESCO reports on the progress of the goals in various countries and provides solutions. In the recent reports, UNESCO has shown that majority countries have not achieved their targets entirely, but there is a steady rise towards its achievement. According to the Global Monitoring Reports by UNESCO, Nigeria is ranked 103, in the Education Development Index, out of 163 nations who signed up the EFA goals. On goal one, which involves expanding early childhood care education, 47% of countries, have already achieved the goal and 8% percent are adjacent to achieving the goal. However, 20% are very far from achieving the goal which includes Nigeria. On the second goal which is about attaining universal primary education, 52% percent have already reached it with 10 % percent close (UNESCO 2013). However, Nigeria and other nations make up 38 percent which has a long way to go. Goal three, which provides access to vocational and life skills, to be equitable has achieved poor performance in many nations with less than half of adolescents enroling in secondary schools, including Nigeria. The fourth goal which aims at decreasing adult illiteracy by 50% percent in 2015 has achieved 25% fulfilment with 32 percent being very far from attaining it. In Nigeria, for example, 51 percent of Nigerian adults are illiterate. On obtaining gender parity and equality which is the 5th goal, many countries, especially in the sub-Saharan region, are yet to achieve it. Specifically, Nigeria is yet to achieve both at the primary and secondary level with more males attending school than females. Female illiteracy is a result of early marriage and premature pregnancy. Further, there is also lack of teacher training on how to approach gender sensitive issues. The last goal addresses the quality of education and improvement. In fact, efficient education has not been achieved in majority countries. However, many states are still on track and will achieve the goals in due course. Nevertheless, Nigeria education system has evolved over the years and ran under the National Policy on Education (NPE). The country published NPE in 1977 until it received some revisions in 2006. The education system has a 6-3-3-4 structure which translates to six years in primary school, three years in junior secondary education, three in senior secondary and four in a tertiary educational institution. However, one year was added as pre-school, making it 10years of compulsory primary education in the country. The education system consists of adult and informal programmes of education, Alma Jiri, and non-school-based training programmes. Also, education is the mandate of the state and mandatory government who make laws about it in Nigeria. Further, primary education, as well as secondary education, is managed by the county and state governments and local governments (Ifenkwe 2013). There also exists the National Council on Education (NCE) which is the highest decision-making body regarding education matters. It is chaired by the minister of education and has council members who are the state commissioners of education. Goal one on universal primary education has been the major focus of many nations among the EFA goals. However, Nigeria has not been able to meet that purpose and is behind. According to reports from Commonwealth, Nigeria has the highest children out of school in the world.by the UNESCO reports over 10.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria compared to 60 million globally which is very alarming. Its poor performance could be due to various factors which include poverty, corruption, poor government funding and security. On poverty, the report indicates that children completing primary education within Nigeria from low-income families dropped from 35% in 2005 to 22 percent in 2013 (Anyanwu 2013). In fact, the gap between the rich and the poor has risen by about 20% in the recent years indicating that poverty rates are getting higher. In turn, it relates to many children, especially girls, being involved in early marriages and pregnancies (Unterhalter, Heslop and Mamedu 2013). Boys, on the other hand, look for jobs to fend for their families leading to a lot of child labour. Corruption has also been a critical issue in Nigeria. There has been a case of embezzlement of over $21 million dollars of money set aside to support education. In fact, the perpetrators of these acts have not been brought to the book indicating unreliability in accountability and transparency in the education sector. Such corruption cases have made international donors, as well as local donors, shy away from funding any projects in fear of money embezzlement. As a result, most children are cut out basic education since they cannot afford to pay fees for private institutions. For the government to end education mismanagement and irregularities, it should put in place measures that will ensure that perpetrators are accountable. Indeed, anyone associated with corruption should step aside until investigations remove his or her name. More so, security has been an issue in Nigeria especially with the rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram, which in collaboration with the AL Qaeda of Afghanistan. This group is against education, and they have campaigns to disrupt learning altogether. Since they occupy the northern region of the country, education has almost been paralysed as many fear they may end up dead after going to school (Olaniyan 2015). Moreover, the terrorist group has managed to set off bombs in educational institutions and kidnapping of girls from schools and eventually killing them. Indeed, terrorism has resulted in high levels of illiteracy in that region as people opt to stay at home and don’t participate in any meaningful activity. Thus, leading to the high rates of out of school children. The group has also resulted in the displacement of thousands of people who move to save their lives (Muhammad and Abbo 2015) In fact, these movements have led to nomadism, and the government has not managed to build extra schools to cater for these populations leading to low literacy levels. To combat the issues affecting the provision of primary education, non-governmental organisations which aim at alleviating the number of out of school children in Nigeria have come up. For example, Child Advocacy on Rights and Education (CARE) is undertaking a three-year campaign to ensure that 60 percent of children who are not in school access primary education. The campaign aims to collect information on the kids who are not in school, provide information to parents on the importance of taking their children to school and provide the necessary support for the poor children to attend school. On the sixth goal which covers improving the quality and standards of education, Nigeria is very far from achieving it as par the UNESCO records. It is attributed to inadequate funding from the government, high teacher-student ratio and lack of necessary infrastructure in schools to ease learning. In reality, funding from the government is wanting. The percentage of the Nigerian budget set aside for education which has been an asset at 30% percent, is not enough to sustain the education sector. Also, there has been poor funding from donors to support the government’s actions to meet the pursuit of education in the country. Nigeria has not been capable of meeting teacher demand required in the schools. Indeed, their salaries are meagre and discouraging. Since primary education is free, the government has not been able to meet the essential requirements, especially regarding textbooks to help the children learn. Inefficiency in school facilities has resulted in a significant issue concerning the quality of education provided to the students. Therefore, there is a need for the government to invest sufficiently in the teaching since it forms the backbone of a healthy and sustainable nation. Further, lack of infrastructure is a major issue in Nigeria. Poor roads have rendered rural area inaccessible and lack of social amenities such as libraries that would help children acquire valuable education. Reliable reports indicate that rural access has worsened in the country in the period between 2003 and 2013. Therefore, inaccessibility has led to rural-urban inequality thus the people living in the countryside face a lot of challenges in obtaining a primary education. Some roads have become impassable overtime and water has not been easily accessible. Indeed, the majority of the people still have to go to walk long distances in search of fresh water instead of going to school. Moreover, the government has not improved the condition of the classroom, and some of them have no door or windows. There is a need to build more to cater for the increase in new students. Toilets and other sanitary facilities are also inadequate giving rise to unfavourable learning conditions. Moreover, there has been a slow response to build facilities to help children, youth and adults with disabilities such as the blind and deaf. Further, teacher-student ratio has been an issue with it standing at 1:51 in 2013 as opposed to 1: 16 in 2009. Although more children have embraced the need for education, the number of teachers has not increased proportionally. Undoubtedly, the responsible board in employing teachers has not done so in the past few years leading to these margins. On the other hand, the government refuses to release funds to cater for an increase in teachers regarding salary payments. Disputable differences between the teachers’ board and the government lead to a standoff where the children are the ones who suffer. In some schools, especially in the northern region, there has been a worrying trend with some schools with over 200 teachers having as low as three teachers (Yusuf, Onifade and Bello 2016). Teacher inadequacy has resulted in an inefficient quality of education since the teachers are unable to cope. Therefore, the government should be ready to release funds to pay teachers and employ more to deal with the current inadequacy. There is no other solution. Neighbouring countries especially those in sub-Saharan Africa have similar problems though some rank a bit higher than Nigeria. They include Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. Cameron, for example, is said to be on the right track by UNESCO and may achieve the goals by 2030 (Okere 2014). Indeed, magnificent and workable policies that Cameron has adopted for its education sector has helped in it meeting its targeted goals. However, Niger and Chad are on the trail of the listing as the experience similar or worse problems compared to Nigeria. Therefore, we see that it is imperative for Nigeria to achieve the EFA goals by investing in the education of its citizens despite the former’s high costs. If need be, external funding from developed countries and non-governmental organisations should be offered to facilitate the process. Doing this will improve the quality of education in the country and also ensure that the literacy levels go up since majority, if not all of the population, will access primary education. Education, especially basic education, is a comprehensive tool for redemption. In Nigeria, the issues of corruption and little funding to schools and teachers can be dealt with at the national level by the members of parliament by allocating more money and requiring accountability for funds given. More so, sensitization to parents and communities on the importance of education should be carried out across the country. Bibliography Ametepee, L.K. and Anastasiou, D., 2015. Special and inclusive education in Ghana: Status and progress, challenges and implications. International Journal of Educational Development, 41, pp.143-152. Anyanwu, J.C., 2013. The correlates of poverty in Nigeria and policy implications. African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development, 2(1), pp.23-52. Hutton, D.M., 2014. Preparing the Principal to Drive the Goals of Education for All: a conceptual case developmental model. Research in Comparative and International Education, 9(1), pp.92-110. Ifenkwe, G.E., 2013. Educational development in Nigeria: Challenges and prospects in the 21st century. Universal Journal of Education and General Studies, 2(1), pp.007-014. Muhammad, N.D. and Abbo, B.M., 2015. Reaching the hard-to-reach nomads through open and distance learning: A case study of nomadic education programme in Nigeria. Okere, A., 2014. Lessons From The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): A Comparison of Nigeria and Her Sub-Saharan Neighbours. UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 14(3), pp.18-32. Olaniyan, O.D., 2015. EFFECT OF BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY ON THE NIGERIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM. Journal of Research, 24(2). Roby, J.L., Erickson, L. and Nagaishi, C., 2016. Education for children in sub-Saharan Africa: Predictors impacting school attendance. Children and Youth Services Review, 64, pp.110-116. Sayed, Y. and Ahmed, R., 2015. Education quality, and teaching and learning in the post-2015 education agenda. International Journal of Educational Development, 40, pp.330-338. UNESCO, E., 2013. Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2013/4 Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All. Unterhalter, E., Heslop, J. and Mamedu, A., 2013. Girls claiming education rights: Reflections on distribution, empowerment and gender justice in Northern Tanzania and Northern Nigeria. International Journal of Educational Development, 33(6), pp.566-575. Yusuf, T.A., Onifade, C.A. and Bello, O.S., 2016. Impact of Class Size on Learning, Behavioral and General Attitudes of Students in Secondary Schools in Abeokuta, Ogun State Nigeria. Journal of Research Initiatives, 2(1), p.12. Read More