EDUCATION AS A GREAT LEGACY

EDUCATION AS A GREAT LEGACY

It's no longer news that EDUCATION is the single most important sector that if the governments, leaderships, and stakeholders in the North (obviously because the North is educationally backward compared to the Southern part) can tackle headlong and sincerely, almost 90%-plus of the challenges and problems of the region will automatically vanish. Priority must be given to education especially primary and secondary education. Unless this is done, no amount of "poverty eradication" programmes or other developmental programmes can singly solve or change the unfortunate status quo. If the governments and stakeholders in the North can put in place a viable framework for the next fifteen years, then the status quo will be history.

For instance, the three most ravaging factors affecting the North are the "Almajiri" scourge (I'm not referring to the organized "Tsangaya system), unemployment, and poverty. These three hydra-headed problems can easily dissolve in a population that is educated. An organized system of education for those who cannot send their children to Western oriented schools due to one reason or the other can solve the problem of the so called Almajiri system. These organized "orthodox" educational system can be in boarding or day school system. Unemployment cannot exists in an educated population because education has proven to enable an individual to be absorbed into the public or private sector, or at most be self-employed. Poverty is often the scion of illiteracy and/or unemployment and once illiteracy and unemployment are taken care of through proper education, poverty will become a thing of the past.

The EDUCATION I'm talking about is that where the teachers are motivated to teach and the teaching environment is enabling. When this kind of EDUCATION is dispensed within the population over a period of, at least, fifteen years, then the challenges and problems facing the North would have been a history. The following years and generations would be consolidated and well grounded to face the challenges of the future.

This EDUCATION will be the greatest LEGACY any government or stakeholder can bequeath to its people especially when there are obvious indices that warrant such needs.

I hope this "reminder post" gets to the governments, leaderships, and stakeholders.

Dr. M. S. Ahmadu
Maiduguri
03/03/2017