Education For All, Not Likely Till 2086 — UNESCO

When the Education for All by 2015 Millennium Development Goal was postulated in 2000, skeptics doubted the ability of countries like Nigeria to live up to that goal in a 15-year time frame.

One year to the 2015 deadline, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, in a 2014 report, said that it would take more than 70 years before all children will have access to primary education.

The two week-old UNESCO report, based on the latest data which is from 2011, shows that there are still 57 million children who did not even get the first basics of schooling. The greatest problems are in sub-Sahara Africa, with particular weaknesses in parts of West Africa, it added.

Entitled 70 Year- Wait for Primary School, the report says 57 million children, over 10.5 million of whom are Nigerians, remain without schools and at the current rate, it will be 2086 before access is reached for poor, rural African girls. In poor countries, one in four young people is unable to read a single sentence. The study also raises concerns about the quality of education in many poorer countries.

There are 130 million children who remain illiterate and innumerate despite having been in school. It means that a quarter of young people in poorer countries are illiterate, which has far-reaching implications for economic prospects and political stability.

Speaking on the issue, the Special Assistant to the Supervising Minister of Education, Bar. Nyesom Wike, Mr. Lambert Oparah, said, “I don’t know where they got the