Minister of State for Education Ezenwo Wike has described rate of adult illiteracy affecting 40 million Nigerians as "unfortunate", indicating the progress of literacy programmes in the country was slow.
Address a stakeholders meeting at the launch of the National Mass Literacy Campaign in Abuja, Wike said: "It is unfortunate that after fifty years of independence, Nigeria still has over forty million people who are illiterate."
The campaign--the first-ever launch in 20 years by the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education (NMEC)--aims to teach at least 10 million adult Nigerians every year to read and write, using thousands of facilitators.
Wike called for support to enable the mass literacy programmes reach all states and local government areas nationwide, targeting an estimated 46% of Nigerians considered illiterate, more than half of them women and girls.
But recent data by NMEC have shown enrolment in mass literacy programmes is reducing, lamented the commission's executive secretary Jibril Paiko.
"We need to awaken Nigerians' interest in learning," he said, adding, "People are interested in the programme; it is the support we are looking for."
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Education (either of the young or the older generation) is something that requires proper planning before execution. We don't just wake up and say we wanna teach 10million nigerian adults how to read and write. Who is going to do the teaching? Is it the same teachers who have been in the classrooms all day teaching the kids or is there a new set of teachers to be employed to do the job? Considering the nature of the learners (illiterate adults:much more difficult to teach than children) what is the form of remmuneration planned out for the teachers? And is this compensation enough motivation to cover the stress of teaching adults? How much awareness has been created for the scheme and what is the acceptance level? Among other important issues to be considered. If all of these issues are not properly ironed out, the exercise will start and die like most initiative by our political leaders, not for lack of interest or qualification of the people involved but the greedy and carefree shot-sighted nature of our leaders and policy makers who will embezzle whatever fund is pumped into the scheme and leave the hardworking teachers high and dry as always. Like the maxim goes "Failure to plan is planning to fail"