Quit Praying Nigeria and Start Acting!

Sometimes in July a good friend of mine, sent me an article with the caption “Quit Praying and Start Acting” written by Mark Batterson. The central aim of that article was to point to us readers that there are many things we pray about that God has given us the ability already. It is just mere blame syndrome that is troubling us. From the article here is an extract:

“How many of our prayer requests are within our own power to answer? Yet we ask God to do what we can do ourselves. And then we wonder why God doesn't respond. Maybe it’s because God won’t do for us what we can do for ourselves. God isn't honored by prayers that are within the realm of human possibility; God is honored when we ask Him to do what is humanly impossible. That way, God gets all the glory!

There are some things we don’t need to pray about:

We don't need to pray about loving our neighbors

We don’t need to pray about giving generously or serving sacrificially.

We don’t need to pray about blessing someone when it is in our power to do so.

We don’t have to pray about turning the other cheek or going the extra mile.

God has already spoken on those subjects.”

Now to our dear country Nigeria, I challenge you to quiet praying to fix our Nation, to live in peace and take your leadership position. We have prayed enough, it is time for action. How come every public holiday, we will ask for prayers, we will challenge ourselves to live in peace and unity. And the next 24 hours we are at it again, promoting injustice, exploiting the poor and weak within our ranks and providing poor quality leadership- with the only solution we bring to the table is “Let us pray for our leaders”. Excuse me, we have prayed enough, it is time to work.

Like Mark Batterson said in his article “Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. Pray about everything. Then pray some more. But at some point, we have to quit praying and start acting.”

More Learning to More People: How can Nigeria be more innovative in bridging its literacy and skills gap? Part 2

(This essay was written in 2013)

continuted from part 1

In over 15 years of serving humanity through volunteering for youthful causes from educational outreach to psychosocial health issues among youths, am a living witness to what education at whatever level can do, and when combined with life skills training, then you are creating a generation that would do wonders. From my activeness as a volunteer I came into leadership position as the youth coordinator in 2002, representing the youth on the management board of the Red Cross society in my region, (Benue) it was in this position, that I learnt the first lesson of youth participation, that,  there is no place for the youth in leadership, not  because we cannot lead but because the adult that failed in their youth, are afraid of what ‘I do not know’, so for youths to earn their place at the top, they must bring  innovative ideas to the table, this I did through an inert embodiment of a balance necessary to learn quickly and perform exceptionally in new, challenging environments. Adding enthusiastic desire to take any initiative and being hard working; you must learn to put them at ease, while with you.  We have to be genuine, optimistic and have a confident personality, with well-developed leadership skills, and have ways to engage challenges and challenge self and others to work collaboratively and approach issues in an innovative ways; these were the virtues that earned me a place among the ‘strong and mighty at that level’.  I would not have done that, if I was not privileged to have gotten some form of education and skills training.

As a youth camp director for eight years (2001-2008), I saw, the desire among youths to educate themselves, but there was a weak system to help them, even when they strive to attend, instructional materials are not available, cost of education are becoming expensive, we were not discouraged, we encouraged ourselves, those that could afford it then went ahead, others took advantage of the public system education that are available though not quality enough but it was affordable, while others enrolled into various skills programme.

The Education for All Global Monitoring Report (EFGMR) 2012 was able to give a three framework skills needed to create a path towards productive employment, most especially for young people because they are numerous than ever and their employment is key to the future of the global economy. The document Next Generation Nigeria, a research report by British Council conducted in 2010 attested to this fact that “Nigeria stands on the threshold of what could be the greatest transformation in its history. By 2030, it will be one of the few countries in the World that has young workers in plentiful supply. Youth not oil will be the country’s most valuable resource in the twenty-first century”, this is all the reason why our educational policy must be designed to hand in glove with relevant skills. The three framework skills are: Foundational Skills, Transferable Skills, and Technical/Vocational Skills.

Foundational Skills: are the first steps in education; they are basic skills such as reading, writing and mathematics, which can be gained in primary and lower secondary schools. These are prerequisites for continuing in education. For those that miss out on acquiring these skills, second-chance programmes are a way to gain then when older.

 Transferable Skills: are a variety of skills, such as problem solving, entrepreneurship and communication skills, which are essential for productive jobs. These skills allow people to adapt to different work environments and they can be gotten through education.

 Technical/Vocational Skills: are specific practical skills that include metalwork, ICT, sewing, and farming, that prepare you for a particular job. They are learned at higher levels of education and formal and informal on-the-job training such as apprenticeship.  

Having shared the basic three-level framework skills needed to increase productivity, there is a need to discuss the path to bring about more learning and close-up skills gap presently witnessed in the country. The current global effort to improve both access to, and quality of, education for people like Hadiza mentioned above is a welcomed thing. Governments, private organizations, NGOs and the United Nations are striving to ensure that young people are able to go to school and learn the skills needed to get a job.  I must commend the Nigerian government for setting aside about $6.43 million (1.03 billion naira) trust fund aimed at revitalizing the adult and youth literacy project in the country, According to the Executive Secretary of National Commission for Mass Education, Alhahi Jibrin Paiko speaking in Benin City, Edo State on 19th August 2013 reported by almost all national newspapers and television/radios during a training for trainers of literacy facilitators “the objective was to strengthen national capacity for the delivery of quality literacy programme to the estimated 40 million illiterates in the country with a view to achieving the education for all and education related MDGs by 2015”. However it should be like every other projects that government will make such pronunciations without following it up or releasing the funds as at when due.       

For the country to have more learning to more people it must join the rest of the world in providing access to school, second-chance education programmes for those who missed out, and practical training to teach vital skills for work. In addition, the country must pave the way to the future of education by increasing access to digital learning. How will it happen?

Access to Education: with over 40 million estimated illiterates in the country, the leadership must urgently design programme that target issues causing this high rate of illiteracy like gender, location, economic factors or even conflicts plunging the North-East of Nigeria. Some solutions can be designing flexible time-table that accommodates children that have to work, community engagement to ensure that everyone understands the need for girl child education, or social protection measures such as cash transfers to help poorest of poor with the cost of books and uniforms.

Second Chance: moving across the street of various cities in the country, are young people and even adults who have missed out on school and failed to have even the most basic skills; for those people a second-chance should be given them to obtain employable skills. The EFGMR youth version (2012) noted that “though second-chance programmes focus on primary education, it is essential that this training is not limited to the very young, as is often the case. Second chance for individuals gives them an opportunity to gain foundation skills that will lead them to better employment.” Nelson Mandela’s quote, used as an opening remark for this essay attests to that, education is the great engine of personal development; it gives a second-chance.        

Practical training: skills are not only developed in schools but can be gotten at vocational centres and through work-based training. Nigeria is blessed with many vocational centres but they should be equipped with all needed training facilities and qualified instructors with technical know-how. Internships and apprenticeships must be encouraged and supervised because they are well-known types of work-based training; presently students from our various higher institutions of learning go for industrial training for going sake, some are money conscious, some do not even go there; they just sit in their room and fill their log books to score marks and graduate. All these as a result of poor supervision from both their school and the Industrial Training Funds (ITF) saddled with the responsibility of managing such skills training for the country work force; not without the usual grumble of lack of funds.  The National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) scheme can be another avenue to get most graduate to acquired employable skills, the programme should be redesigned not this present mandate of forcing everybody to go teach, it is one thing to acquire knowledge, it is one thing to be able to transfer such, we are complaining that standard of our education has dropped and now the same system is forcing young graduate themselves that needs more skills to survive in this present day economy after youth service to give foundational skills to students in school. Therefore skills acquisition should be paramount in the scheme at least in the first six (6) and they now serve the nation in the remaining months. 

Above all vocational skills training should be in cooperated with foundational skills especially for the young adults and adults seeking a second-chance.

Digital Learning:             

The Education for all report 2012 noted on page 247 that “the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education is gathering momentum across the world, even in some of the most challenging environments in developing countries”, The youth version of the same report captured it more beautifully by saying “the internet can be a godsend for young people looking for an education. The majority of the population has a mobile subscription in every continent and computers are becoming more widespread. Even right now, many young people that can’t afford full schooling are able to access the internet. They can use the internet (whether at home or somewhere public like a library) to learn at their own pace for free, even if they have to work in the daytime or can’t afford or access regular schooling. If they want to get a qualification like a high school diploma, then they just need to afford time and money for one or two days to attend an exam. This lowers the cost barrier of pursuing an education a lot. “Nigeria government can learn from the ‘Indian Government who launched tablets with internet at just $35 for students, with plans to distribute 10 million over the next few years. The ability to learn from the internet is making education more accessible for everyone’. Nigeria must tap into the vast majority of mobile phone connections; it must increase its broadband to boast more connectivity for users. Also the nation is reap for its own ‘Silicon Valley’ there are large numbers of self trained youths on ICT hacking into the network of most mobile phone companies to provide cheaper services to subscribers in terms of browsing and surfing the internet, even watching free digital television. These young people should be assembled, trained and encouraged to start out sourcing ICT from Nigeria and providing better services not just relaying on expatriates.

More Finance: experience has shown that investing in education can help achieve the EFA goals. However, in doing this mechanism must be put in place to ensure that cost does not now become a barrier to young people noted the EFGM youth version report 2012. The report noted that since Dakar in 2000 many countries have been investing more in education but most countries need to do more, and I think Nigeria should be one among such nations that needs to do more; the country must put education at the top of political agenda, one of the several issues that have caused incessant strikes by ASUU in Nigeria has been poor funding of education. It’s time the country stop depending on donors even in the area of funds for educational projects, donors are cutting down on their investment in education in developing countries; good management of natural resources can help us fund more learning and closing skills gap in the country, Nigeria is blessed, the need to diversify the economy cannot be over emphasized, depending on oil alone is not helpful even at that the funds from crude oil if managed well will fund our education and collaboration with private organizations might also be helpful to might up short falls from government spending on education. Because a strong investment in skills education is the key to national prosperity; all we need now it’s a skilled education.   

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Having shared the skills framework and pathway to bringing them into action in our present educational condition or policy framework, which will help to bring more learning to more people in Nigeria and bridge the skills gap that now exists.  I would love to conclude by saying we as citizens of Nigeria are responsible for ensuring that our government fulfils its obligation to provide education. The 10 steps recommendation made by young people who worked on the youth version for Education for All Global Monitoring Report for 2012, will be a useful tool for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Government Ministries and Agencies responsible for education, Students, Teachers, individuals and all stakeholders in the education sector demanding skilled education for all. And they are:

·  Provide second-chance education for those with low or no foundation skills through increase government funding, policy creation and having them in national budget forecast

·   Tackle the barriers that limit access to lower secondary school

·  Make upper secondary educating more accessible to the disadvantaged and improve its relevance to work by ensuring that technical and vocational training is included with flexible schedules; creatively teaching skills relevant to job context through curriculum reforms and giving career guidance.

·  Give poor urban youth access to skills training for better jobs, through strengthening training provided by master craftspeople and improving training conditions. Also budding entrepreneurs be provided access to funds to start their own business as well as much-needed training.  

·  Aim policies and programmes at youth in deprived rural areas: National governments should give greater attention to rural young people by providing them second-chance education to acquire foundational skills as well as training in agriculture techniques to enhance productivity.

·  Link skills training with social protection for the poorest youth:  skills’ training alone are unlikely to be sufficient for most disadvantaged urban and rural poor. Therefore, measures should be taken to provide them protection schemes and basic literacy/numeric training.

·  Make the training needs of disadvantaged young women a high priority: through providing them with microfinance and livelihood assets as well as skills to manage them.

·  Harness the potential of technology to enhance opportunities for young people:

·  Improve planning by strengthening data collection and coordination of skills programmes

·  Mobilize additional funding from diverse sources dedicated to the training needs of disadvantaged youth.

Let’s remember Nelson Mandela comment that I quoted above even as my prayers’ is with him on his sick bed, lets honour him by ensuring that education is made available for all citizens, I leave you again with the quote ‘Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation.’

Reference

1. Youth Version of the 2012 EFA Global Monitoring Report: “Youth and Skills: Putting education to work” http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international agenda/efareport/

2. FG earmarks N1.03bn for revitalization of adult literacy article written by Gabriel Enogholase published on 20th August, 2013. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/fg-earmarks-n1-03bn-for-revitalisation-of-adult-literacy/

 

More Learning to More People: How can Nigeria be more innovative in bridging its literacy and skills gap? Part 1

(This essay was written in 2013 )

"Strong investment in skills education is key to national prosperity”

Nelson Mandela once said ‘Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation.’

Education as a right it’s so important that it was enshrined in the Universal declaration of Human Rights. The greatest need of young people had always been information and helping to explore such information through their own sharing; when people are helped they find the right solution to their own problems.  The continues pressure and agitation across the country as regard the reality of illiteracy and even literate without employable skills, shows  we are all tired of carry along and non-inclusive policy on all matters that concerns young people. Whereas few people dispute youths’ right to education, few efforts are made to ensure that youths actually benefit from education services. 

I have grown up to know that education does not save you from deception, even at that it is still the only way out of oppression anyway. I know no system is perfect but here at home in Nigeria we must stop using that as an excuse to cut off a generational consciousness, because it is only a generational consciousness powered through skilled education that can bring about the desired impact when young people have opportunity into leadership powers or places of influence.     

I once read it somewhere that we have no future without children; worst of all what kind of future would we have with children without any form of education? I have witnessed a few crises political, tribal and religious here in Nigeria and those that are used as fighters are young people with no education or livelihood.  I see children that are religiously confused both Muslims and Christians and worst of all those that do not belief in anything and they are more in numbers and can be bought over by the highest bidder because they have no means of livelihood. They do not understand how a civilized society works; they wake-up with no life goal; football viewing centre’s is their homes. However all this have to change; I see young people saying youths are more of an asset, not really beneficiary of developmental project, like it seems now.

Statistics of our failed educational sector must cause worry to any good citizen of Nigeria, as I write this essay academic staff union of Nigerian Polytechnics just suspended their industries strike with a promise to go back after three(3) months if their demands are not met, academic staff union of universities are entering the second month of their own industrial action, while there are various tails of closed schools across the Nation with teachers demanding for better working environment and welfare from primary schools to tertiary institutions. The last Joint Admission Matriculation examinations for tertiary institutions across the country saw over 1.7million candidates sit for the said examination with only 10 scoring over 300 marks, while over 50% had less than 200 marks, this raised a lot of concern and questions over this poor performance. What of the situations where our Universities are turning out graduate without employable skills? What of those that do not have access to formal education either due to where they were born, their gender or finance, does that mean they cannot be given required skills that can either make them employable or create their own jobs?. Current statistics from the National Commission for Mass Education as at 2013 estimated 40 million Nigerians to be illiterates, this comprises mostly of out of school children, youths and adults, who have never attended school. A large percentage of whom are girls and young women. At this point I would love to point out that there is nothing wrong with our current educational policy, but the implementation of such policies with prevailing technological growth and demand has been the problem. I will not dwell on a failed system or write on the woe but profess some innovative solutions that will bring on more learning to more people and bridge the literacy and skills gap now befalling our educational system.      

Many young people around the country leave school without the skills they need for work and life. Though Nigeria is not alone in this, other developed and developing countries still experience this, they are deprived of their right to have access to learning opportunities, due to poverty, conflict, disabilities, their social status, their gender, or where they live. However we cannot keep grumbling over the decay of our educational system and failed leadership, it’s time to look for solution on how these deprived citizens, will have access to education and their possibilities in life, such as their future employment opportunities with the right skills and experience the basic right of learning the skills needed for work.

In August 2012, Peace Child International and UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report Team mobilized Task Force of young people aged 15-30 to produce a young people’s summary for the 2012 year's landmark Report on Youth, Skills and Productive Work. It was landmark because the publication was making its 10th year publication without a youth version. They wanted a version of the report that was accessible to young people to make sure that all of them, regardless of their background, have the skills needed for good jobs – and that everyone around the world has the same opportunities as those that would do the report  have had to be able to read and write! It was a call to take action for education because it has a transformative power. The document was a tool to campaign for better skills for youths and everybody to be given opportunity to be literate and numerate. Yours faithfully was privileged to make contributions and my work was used as one of the working materials and one of my interview story conducted in Kaduna Nigeria was used in the final youth summary document titled: Be skilled Be employed Be the Change Generation. Therefore my essay would use majorly as a working material extract from it and share the recommendation in the document that invited UNESCO and its Member States which Nigeria it’s one and holds a signature to the Education for All Monitoring Group to ensure strong investment in skills education it is key to national prosperity.  Would also share from my life experience what skilled education can offer a young person.     

Education for All is a united global movement that was formed in 2000 aimed at providing equality and accessible education to every person on the globe and about 164 countries committed to the movement and together they set the 6 goals to ensure education for all in Dakar, Senegal with a 2015 deadline. The goals are: (i) Expand early childhood care and educate; (ii) Achieve universal primary education; (iii) Promote learning and life skills for young people and adults; iv) Reduce adults illiteracy by 50%; (v) Achieve gender parity and equality; (vi) Improve the quality of education.        

Even as we approach 2015 deadline many Nations are making remarkable progress like south-east Asia countries to achieve almost all goals expect goal 2 achieve universal primary education which currently appears will not be achieved and goal 3 to promote learning and life skills for young people and adults, because as it stands now it looks like the problem with goal 3 is that it has not been well defined. Going through the report (I advice readers to read the two reports that is both the main Education for all Report and Youth version 2012 at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/) Nigeria has not done well, she has room to improve on all indices though there are increased numbers of children in school like every other sub-Saharan countries. For Nations that are just about achieving some of the goals, this was possible through community involvement, increasing numbers of trained teachers, targeting financial support for the indigent’s mostly girls, gender sensitive teaching measures and providing materials and safe, healthy school environment. I think Nigeria can learn from this; Hadiza one of the young people I wrote about featured in the global report collaborate the need that we can learn from the success of the south-eastern Asians and some Arab states; she was brought from her village to live with a family as their house maid; she attends evening Secondary school that fits to her work schedule. She does her chores in the morning, while her employers and their kids are away to work and school, so on their return, she heads to school. The concern is the fatigue and concentration level in school, after such a tedious work, but she feels it is better than no education at all; at least she can read now and is getting to write gradually. She says: ‘Though to be honest afternoon school is not that good because then the environment is not conducive to learn … but for many people like me that cannot wake and get ready for school, unless we finish our house work, it is helping us to at least get a form of education. So I appeal to government to build more schools in our neighbourhood and get us better environment.’ ..... to be continued. 

Are We Ready for another Outbreak?

2017 of Famine and Diseases 

 2016, was a year of loads of promises that did not come to pass for many nations and people around the globe. For me, it was a different story which I know they are others that shared same stories with me, it was a year of marked progress in life. Like a newspaper article in the US, noted 2016 a year that never took off!

As an economist with depth in development space, 2016 never took me by surprise, just like 2017 would not.

Coming home to Nigeria it was a year of ‘confusion’ across the leadership space and the masses paid the price for that confusion with untold hardship that could have been avoided. And now 2017, a year that looks ‘dark’ for nations and I don’t see any lesson learnt by Nigerians leadership across board. With the budget of Nigeria showing that our President plans to spend his way out of recession, without any supporting private sector involvement even the best of socialist government in history has never succeeded in that move. If he does his name should be framed in the Guinness Book of Records, and I sincerely prays he does.  

Having said that, my concern is now about what the signs of the earth is showing us as regards food security and health challenges. The condition shows we might experience famine and disease outbreak- I know there is lots of “God forbid” going on now! Well God has given us, scientists and diplomats to prepare the people for such a time as these. Discussing our preparedness with a friend of mine, he showed concern and optimism at the same time. His words were “the issue [is] that Nigerian health workers have not been able to see the difference between epidemic preparedness and health facility readiness to implement innovation or change in the health context”

My first response was “well are we prepared for any emergency at all?” His response “well at least Lagos State is” I answered “to a large extend bro…they also can do better. In as much as they are a model state a lot is still lacking”. He went ahead to share how the existing Polio centres was what rescued Nigeria during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 but as a nation we were not ready then and even now.

From the discussion, we noted that since we experienced the index case of Ebola July 20, 2014. We should expect another soon. And our surveillance and ancillary signal system is poor. Our borders are porous, the Airports is ill-equipped. Also after WHO declared Nigeria Ebola free. All the hand washing campaigns stopped in most schools and places of worship.

We must get ready again, with enough indigenous knowledge and hand washing behaviours proven across the pandemic zones in Africa to have citizens protected. All those concern must get us ready for yet another outbreak of whatever epidemic that is on his way here!

On food security, until we have a sequential chain or an organised value chain, Agriculture will be more farming less productivity. Many players in this field like me, has reached out to many Governors and concern stakeholders in the Agricultural sectors, responses so far has shown Government is still satisfied with propaganda and status quo. Nigeria' 2017 Budget holds promises, but the balance between researches, field, financing and market; and incentives to get more young people into the value chains, might help us meet our food needs. 

In this  2017, please keep your family safe, ensure your watch out for this five elements that can expose them to disease and how to put up the best possible defences. (Water, Food, Insects, Animals & People). And for food, I advise you have a family garden if you have space and cut food waste, prepare only what you all can eat at a time. Keep a food dairy to check areas of wastage.

Stay safe peps!       

Article first written December 2016 for Herald Online Newspaper, edited for this blog post.