Maryam Takan is a seventeen-year-old resident of Takan, a village under Asa local government in Kwara State, Nigeria, who, unlike other females her age, appears to be strolling around by noon on a school day.
When asked about her absence from school, she explained that she had given up on schooling a few years prior. She stated that there were no secondary schools in her vicinity when she finished her primary education.
“I stopped after my primary education because I couldn’t get anyone to send me further, and there was no secondary school in my area, which made me venture into the farming business,” she said with teary eyes.
Adding to why Maryam could not proceed with her academics, her brother AbdulMumin Takan explained how the community has faced several unfulfilled promises from different NGOs that offered to help build a secondary school.
“One non-governmental organization once visited our village, promising to start a secondary school, and we even pledged to give them the needed land to encourage them. Unfortunately, we did not hear from them again,” AbdulMumin said.
“To me, education commands lower priority in this village. Even the elementary school we have here is not encouraging enough. It’s only a building of two dilapidated classes serving from kindergarten to primary six, and the teachers there are not that sound,” he explained.
Similar to Maryam’s plight, Abdullahi (not his real name) was another victim who was taken to a mechanic workshop for an apprenticeship after his primary education in 2016.
According to resident Turawa Kamaldeen, the inaccessibility to secondary school causes many to stop after their primary education.
“It is only a few whose parents have money to take them to and from Ilorin (the capital city) every day that continue their secondary education,” Kamaldeen explained.
Apoya, Gaa Goronyo, and Ojugbede are some of the villages in Asa local government where children value education less, with many dropping out due to a lack of access to proper schools. Apoya, Takan, Gaa Goronyo, and other neighbouring villages share a single primary school that has been served as an elementary school since 1983, now in a deteriorating building of two classrooms.
While politicians visit these villages when elections approach, the level of literacy remains dismal.
Inside the 41-year-old abandoned primary school
A visit to Takan LGEA primary school revealed dire conditions. According to Apoya resident Abdulazeez Suleiman, a cashew tree (known as Dala) in front of the school often serves as a classroom for lectures.
“The deteriorating state of the classrooms is the major reason for the trepidation of most parents from registering their wards in the school,” Abdulazeez said.
“It feels like they have forgotten us here. But if the government can build more classes for us, I believe it will encourage parents to enrol their children in the school,” he concluded.
During the visit, many pupils were seen wandering around despite it being past 11:00 a.m. One of the teachers confirmed Abdulazeez’s statement about using the cashew tree as a classroom.
“It’s because today is Friday; you should have met pupils under the tree receiving classes. As you can see, the classes here are not enough. And most teachers don’t want to come here when posted because of the situation, plus the fact that the road to this school is nothing to write home about,” the teacher said.
“Imagine we have been here since 7:30 am; the teachers have to chase the children to come to school. We are forced to start classes by 9 am because they will not come before then,” the teacher continued.
The teacher recounted an incident when he was newly transferred to the school.
“One day, I was in class teaching when I noticed a parent standing by the window. When I inquired, he said he came to call his child to the farm. I was furious, but a staff member signalled to me that I was in a village.”
According to him, the staff also face challenges when they are closed for the day, spending an average of two to three hours before they get home due to the bad state of the roads.
Unfulfilled Promises
According to Imam Ahmad, spokesperson for Mogaji Gaa Goronyo, the villagers are the ones making repairs to the school, even though it was founded by the state government.
“Just recently, each village donated a bag of cement for some repairs in that school to the teachers,” Ahmad said.
During the 2023 election, numerous politicians visited the village with promises to build schools and roads.
“It has been close to a year now, but nothing has been done. Even my own kids attend Ansarul Islam Secondary School in Ilorin, and I know how much that costs me daily,” he lamented.
Brand New Secondary School, Deteriorating Primary schools
On a Friday afternoon, this reporter visited Awe LGEA Primary School, another primary school in Asa Local Government. It is situated about 60 kilometres away from Takan LGEA Primary School. Established in 1975, the school building, like Takan Primary School, is in a state of disrepair.
The atmosphere was noisy as one of the senior pupils was pronouncing some English words on the board while the remaining pupils repeated after her. Only one staff member was present as of the time Dataphyte visited
“The major challenge we are facing here is structure. Several classes are being taken in the same room. This is bad for a school with almost 200 pupils,” the staff member lamented.
He pointed out that when the governor visited the village last year, the school was on holiday, and the villagers didn’t bother to show him the dilapidated state of the school. “The visit birthed the new secondary school there,” he concluded.
The secondary school was built in 2023, a block of six classrooms aimed at easing accessibility to secondary education. However, for ambitious students like Maryam who live several kilometres from the school, attending remains a distant dream.
Mandala Junior Secondary School, not good enough?
In Mandala, another village in Asa Local government, the situation is slightly different. The village has both a primary and junior secondary school, but a staff member of the junior secondary school, who spoke anonymously, explained that the classes were not congested.
“We are currently having problems with furniture as the chairs in the classrooms are not enough. We have a single arm for each class, as you can see. This is a junior secondary school, and we only have three classes, which are JSS 1–3, but like I said, the classes are not too congested,” he said.
The Bigger Picture
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), one in three children in Nigeria is out of school, totalling 10.2 million at the primary level and 8.1 million at the junior secondary school (JSS) level.
The UN education body also indicated that 12.4 million children have never attended school, and 5.9 million left school prematurely, contributing to Nigeria’s out-of-school population, which accounts for 15% of the global total.
As of 2021, Kwara State boasts one of the states with the fewest out-of-school children, with 84,247 of its 3.2 million population. One in every 38 people is out of school in Kwara.
According to Olusegun Adewara, Publicity Secretary of Kwara PDP, the number of out-of-school children in the state was 84,247 in 2018. The situation surged to 141,325 in 2022, an increase of 68 per cent in just three years of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
Adewara contended that the assertions that learning deprivation in public schools decreased from 70.8 per cent to 51.6 per cent between 2019 and 2023 and that Kwara increased basic school enrollment by 48.7% and 51.6%, respectively, were attempts to distort the truth.
However, the state of literacy in Kwara rural areas continues to suffer due to dilapidation and underfunding, potentially triggering an increase in the out-of-school percentage.
What experts think
In an interview with Adegbite Taoheed, a child rights advocate and editor for the Nigerian Tribune, To him, equal or equitable access to education doesn’t end with the building of classroom structures in rural areas, as it’s obtainable in most states of the country. It entails bridging all other gaps that may impede the high-quality education of every child, regardless of social background or ethnicity.
Among other things, how many of those structures are accessible for rural students in the rainy season? Are there enough teachers ready to go there and teach, or is this how many of our education projects will continue to be there as signposts and allowed to rot away? All these must be factored in.
“We still have miles to cover, away from our success stories on paper, in terms of equitable access to education in the real sense of it,” Mr. Taoheed pointed out.
“In most cases, posted teachers would rather work it out to stay in urban areas than come to impact lives in suburbs,” he said. “What are the government’s special packages for teachers ready to go there? I think that’s one of many things that could show the government is really serious by incentivizing teaching in rural schools. Insecurity as a common currency is another head-aching concern lately, with a decentralized developmental focus on urban areas.”
He furthered that while we must also learn to admit that the government alone can’t address it all, they could work it out with private organizations to employ teachers for rural schools or address other topical challenges as part of their own annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program.
“I’m aware of a Teacher Bank project by RHF that provides teachers to rural schools. I’m sure others are trying their bits. But I think NGOs can do more than keep spending days and donor funds on capacity building of privileged individuals just to continue talking about equal access to education.,” he pointed out.
Speaking of the implication, Mr. Taoheed explained that the implication does not end with the person.
“The implications are affecting us all. Though education doesn’t end with the four walls of the classroom, formal education makes a significant difference in the Nigerian context. Imagine those being recruited for electoral violence. Much less talking about many of those foot soldiers engaged in banditry, kidnapping, and other insecurity challenges we all dread today who might have had a different case if they had an enabling environment that gave them access to education and skills.” He concluded.
Speaking with Dataphyte, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, Mr Rafiu Ajakaye, acknowledged the infrastructural deficiencies in Kwara schools, dating back to 2013 when the state was blacklisted by UBEC.
However, the present government is trying its best to bring the state back to normal. In his words,
“We are not disputing the fact that we are having the issue of deficiency. This has been one of the issues we have been addressing from the beginning of this administration,” he said.
Just last week the government issued a statement as to what it’s doing to address the issue of deficiency. This government is just five years old and the issue cannot just be solved overnight,” he continued.
“605 schools out of a total of about 2,187 basic schools in the state benefited from the interventions so far, there is still more to come, and this point has been made several times.” He concluded.
Mr. Rafiu inquired whether this reporter saw the statement released by the State government weeks back. When I answered in the negative. He then shared the statement of the state government on the issue with this reporter through a WhatsApp chat.