The Learning Process

Adewale Ifeoluwa

   Education is a learning process or the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and habits. Educational methods include teaching, training, storytelling, discussion and directed research. Education can take place in formal or informal settings and any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels or acts may be considered educational. The method and practice of teaching is called pedagogy.

    

     Education in Nigeria  

  All children, no matter where they live or what their circumstances, have the right to quality education. 

  Education is an important aspect of development, but unfortunately Education in Nigeria is faced with myriads of problems. These includes; poor funding and thus poor educational infrastructures, inadequate classrooms, teaching aids (projectors, computers, laboratories and libraries), paucity of qualified teachers and poor/polluted learning environment. In addition to these inadequacies, our school system is plagued with numerous social vices such as examination malpractices, cultism, hooliganism and corruption. 

   Nigeria's government has acknowledged that the country has the highest number of children out of school in the world. It says there are 10.5 million children not being educated. Education officials have blamed cultural factors, nomadic communities and the Boko Haram Islamist Insurgency. Critics point to a lack of funding. 

   Even though primary education is officially free and compulsory, about 10.5 million of the country's children aged 5-14 years are not in school. Only 61% of 6-11 year olds regularly attend primary school and only 35.6% of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education. In the north of the country, the picture is even bleaker, with a net attendance rate of 53%. Getting out-of-school children back into education poses a massive challenge. Factors like gender, geography and poverty are important in the pattern of education marginalization. States in the north-east and north-west have female primary net attendance rates of 47.7% and 47.3% respectively, meaning that more than half of the girls are not in school. The education deprivation in Northern Nigeria is driven by various factors, including economic barriers and socio-cultural norms and practices that discourage attendance in formal education, especially for girls. 

Ensuring educational provision in predominantly rural areas and the impact of insurgency in the north east present significant challenges. In north-eastern and north-western states, 29 percent and 35 percent of Muslim children respectively, receive Quranic education, which does not include basic skills such as literacy, and numeracy. The government considers children attending such schools to be officially out of school. 

   UNICEF has probed into Nigeria's issue of illiteracy with its education programme which is to support the government in achieving SDG 4 (sustainable development goal 4) by 2030 through improved planning and by addressing some of the systemic barriers that hinder the implementation of an effective education strategy. The programme advocates for education to be prioritised and targets children who are least likely to receive an education. The expected outcome of the programme is that all children access and complete quality education, within a safe learning environment, gaining the skills and knowledge for lifelong learning. 

This work will be achieved by creating an enabling environment for education, improving the quality of education, increasing demand for education and humanitarian assistance.