A classic and well-researched newspaper opinion artic titled: The Geography Of Illiteracy, written by Babatunde Ahonsi, and published in The Guardian of June 2011, unearthed the worrisome figures that should keep eve good Nigerian busy with a thought on where we went amiss in our educational sector. The figures, Dr Ahonsi released, a chilling, to say the least. There show how depleted 01 education has gone.

Thank you Dr Ahonsi, I believe and accept every part your work and research. It can even be worse. Your article was balanced – problem stated and solutions proffered. This piece is to sound the warning lauder, state where we got it wrong and highlight some other solutions with examples to the ones you proffered.

Geography of Illiteracy must occur in a place where the parents, students and the society alike do not give a hoot on how academic success came about but concentrate more on the ‘success’ itself. They will always quote the c1andestine adage, “the end justifies the means”. Yes, the end has not only killed our education but also is killing our society. The break down will lend credence to this assertion.

The North East and North West as well as South South are the worst h it, and that answers the mayhem that has characterized those places. Butthis is just the secondary cause. The family is failing as an agent of socialization in Nigeria, and this failure cum corruption in our society is the bane of our education system.

Academic success in our country now is not viewed in the number of work put in, but seen from the paper a child presents to his parents. The parents are far too busy with wealth accumulation or trying to survive in a harsh economic environment. They forgo salient aspect of their duty in the child’s life like helping out in homework, teaching the child the rudiments and teaching the child the importance of hard work. The lack of moral upbringing that is evident in our generation is contributing too.

So, like opportunity cost in Economics, the parents search for money and forgo knowledge and morality. Can we eat our cake and have it? Geography of illiteracy is what we asked for! Abraham Lincoln was not a fool when he pleaded with his son’s teacher to “teach him that a dollar earned is far more valuable than five pounds I had not earned.” Morality is what he was advocating.

Why are we experiencing this geography of illiteracy? This is the focus of this piece. Outside the ones enumerated above, corruption caused by low moral rectitude is another. The paper is more important than what is upstairs. The parents encourage this; corrupt teachers and education policy makers aid them. Parents pay money for examination malpractice for their children, some schools, mainly private ones encourage this to swell their number – runaway, that is the economics of private schools in Nigeria. The policy makers draw up mediocre educational policy. I will visit that later!

I was severely punished in my senior secondary school one (SSS 1) for reporting a teacher who gave an “A” to my classmate who could hardly read then in Bible Knowledge because the

said teacher was given an envelope by the student. So, we asked for it and it is very much with us – the geography of illiteracy.

What is the way forward should concern us now, and not really the past. But the past is necessary in order to correct the present, and get the future right. That was why Jesus always used stories to teach, and it was highly effective. On e thing that needs urgent attention is our educational policy: Standard Six System; primary, Junior Secondary, Senior Secondary, and higher institution (aka 6-3- 3-4), AN D Universal Basic Education (UBE), are all good and same, if given adequate care and attention.

Our learning and evaluation modes are chaotic to say the least. Pupils are taught from September to December, only to be given hordes of tests a week before examinations. For instance, a child covers all the chapters for test and examinations. How bizarre!

This is because the time the teacher was supposed to use for the test must have been used for farming (in the rural areas), and trading (in the urban centres) by the teacher to augment his pay for enhanced living condition. This has a distance relation – poor pay. But the world standard is for homework to be given to a student from every topic and quiz as well as test to be administered at the end of every chapter.

In fact, in countries like the United States, South Korea, and England, the pupil might not write an examination since he or she must have been tested in all chapters, and to me, that is

thorough compared to the Kangaroo examinations we conduct here. That is truly the true test of knowledge! If the child did not do well- a euphemism for failure – he or she will enroll for

summer school, and it is only when the child fails again that he repeats the class. Compare this to our educational system, and you will see that our educational policies are flawed.

Teachers’ remuneration is another issue. The teachers are so poorly paid that they look for other things to do in order to supplement. Do I blame them? They have a reason! “Man must whack”, some of them are owed tons of salaries and allowances. The effect is beyond this. Poor pay has driven away intelligent people from teaching. Go to a school, and ask the top 15 students what career choice they would like to pursue after school and you will understand the danger facing education: You will hear medicine, law, journalism, accountancy, petrochemical and petroleum engineering, mechanical engineering, among others. Teaching will rarely or never be mentioned.

So, who are the teachers in the making, the academically unstable students who cannot compete in that “hot terrain” of the good head? Dullards are being trained as manpower trainers, pathetic. Teachers indeed! So, government must boost the educational sector through high pay to make it look lucrative. This will bring good heads and safe hands in the sector.

Reading materials are of immense contribution to teaching and learning. Our textbooks should always be critically examined before it is recommended. What we see are watery texts that are not helpful. Most of the books are not explanatory; they smack of carelessness, and lack detailed analysis.

For instance, what kind of Mathematics textbook will just state a ten-step solving problem, only to scribble it down as a four-step? Some English textbooks draw sketches in a writing topic without scripting an example. Does that not smack of misinformation? They are part of the geography of illiteracy!

Scholarships and educational aids like free books and good laboratory equipment are necessary but they are neglected in our country. The oil companies give pseudo scholarships, schools and churches do not deem that necessary, federal, state and local governments have since forgotten about it.

Our order of priority or scale of preference is highly faulty. Scholarships and educational aids serve as motivation to students.

In other countries, scholarships are used to horn for talents and breed them to be loyal to the cause of the school, and country. Geography of illiteracy starts here, and must be combated from all fronts.

Dr Ahonsi, in his closing paragraph posited thus: “for so many children to be illiterates and innumerable in a state is nothing short of structural violence perpetrated by the state

since basic education in today’s world is every child’s right, and is extremely beneficial to the larger society.

Yes, a society that is occupied by ill iterates and innumerable youths will lack manpower amidst avalanche of able-bodied men and women. That kind of society is as good as doomed. If education is the bedrock of the society as we always eulogise, a serious task is then in our hands. Let us all put hands together to pull out our beloved country from this avoidable doom. That way, we must have squashed this geography of illiteracy. Governments at all levels in Nigeria, wake up!

Temple, a public affairs analyst, writes from Port Harcourt.

Uwalaka Temple