Out of school, and out of touch

Nigeria is ending 2018 not only with the highest number of out-of-school children in the world but with the number increasing from 10 million to 13.2 million. KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE reports on how poverty is keeping children out of the classrooms and the dangers it poses to the country’s future.

IN future, Saka and Abidemi may name the Local Government Nursery and Primary School, Jagunna, Itori in Ewekoro, Ogun State as part of their construction work sample.  They would say they were among the men contracted to build the block of classrooms for the school – only that they were just young boys working while they ought to have been learning.

The day this reporter met them on the construction site was Children’s Day (May 27). While they carried 20-litre buckets of sand to and fro to deliver to  builders, their peers attending the school were squealing with delight over recreation equipment donated by a foundation.  But they, and two other boys seen at the site, could not even watch the fun because they had to work.

Saka and Abidemi are among the 13.2 million children not attending primary school in Nigeria.  They are among the hundreds of thousands of children who have to work to earn their keep or starve.  School is not a necessity because their basic needs must be met first.

Beyond giving their names, Saka and Abidemi did not speak to this reporter.  However, a young man, who filled their buckets with sand, said the duo and himself were apprentices learning about construction.  For their labour each day, they got a food allowance of N500 – which is about $1.39 – lower than the $1.90 world benchmark earning of what people living in extreme poverty survive on.

“They are not paid; they are apprentice. They are learning work – building construction, building contractor…me too I am learning; I do not get paid. I get food money. They also collect food money of N500,” said the 21-year old who revealed that his own education ended in JSS3.

He said the boys were brought to the site by the man in charge. When asked why they were working on the site instead of going to school, the man in question said: “Everybody’s destiny is different.”

Just as Saka and Abidemi’s parents released them from Ilaro to work at Ewekoro, Favour Frederick was sent by her mother from Enugu to come help her Aunt, Ebere Obiora in Lagos.

The 11-year-old did not complete Primary Five before she came to Lagos earlier this year ahead of the birth of Mrs Obiora’s  third child.

With two older children aged seven and two, Mrs Obiora had appealed to her elder sister to send Favour to help with her business of selling local confectionaries, soft drinks and water, until she could return to work after the baby. She was particularly in dire straits because her husband had travelled in search of greener pastures.

“I am going to government school in our village in Enugu State before my mother transferred me to a private school.  That was where I stayed and read Primary Five.  After that my Mummy said I should help my Aunty – so that the suffer she is suffering will stop; that when she gives birth she will start school for me.  My sister (aunt) said the suffering is too much for her.  She was selling rice before but when that rice is no more giving  her too much money like that…before she always sell and come back to cook another one.  But later she said if she cooks two Derica cups of rice, she will not sell it finish. That was why when another sister who was selling here before, when they now want to travel to Abuja, they now teach my sister how to do all these. She learnt from them before they traveled” she said.

When the baby came in September, Favour began running the business alone.  Daily she would commute from Cele Aguda, where they stayed to Ladipo in Mushin with doughnuts and eggrolls prepared by her Aunt to sell.  She would close around 8pm for the journey back home.

“My Aunty said if I don’t come, we will not eat,” said Favour, who spoke with this reporter while politely taking orders from customers or dealing with drinks suppliers/Esusu collector.

Beyond sale from the business, Favour said they have to depend on relatives to survive.

“When I came, I did not see my Aunty’s husband.  Sometimes, my brother (uncle) Orlu, brings food for us. He brought us half of half bag of rice; sometimes my mother sends food from the village.  The one that helps us most is when Brother Orlu brings food for us.  Then, the one I sell too helps. When my uncles come to see us in the house, my aunty cooks for them, then they give us money,” she said.

In the course of buying and selling daily, Favour complained to this reporter about facing harassment from male customers who buy on credit  and refuse to pay until she goes chasing after them. They attempt to touch her inappropriately.

“Aunty, this is one of them,” she pointed to a man passing by.

Favour spends her spare time drawing. She said she was taught by her elder sister back in the village and may have got the talent from their father, a Carpentar. She still nurses hope of going to school and becoming a doctor.

“My sister taught me to draw. She can draw you if she sees you. My father can make all kinds of things out of wood. I want to go to the University, finish all the whole school. I will like to be a doctor and an artist,” she said.

Favour’s day starts at 5am helping to prepare her cousins for school before helping prepare the pastries she sells in Mushin. She is hanging on to the promise that she would start school when her Aunty’s husband returns and there is more funds to go round. She knows her cousins’ school fees was paid in bits.

Mrs Obiora said she was not happy her neice was  not in school. She said even fees of her children had not been paid in full.

“My sister we are just struggling. I have already prepared school for her but no money and my husband. Without this thing we are selling we cannot feed. So me I am not happy that that small girl will carry food all the way from Cele Aguda she will come all the way to sell market. It is risky but this baby is a month and three weeks old. When he is up to two months I will start coming. Without that thing we cannot feed. As I am at home I am suffering. We are hungry, I am not lying,” said Mrs Obiora.

Mrs Obiora said if she gets fund she  would enrol Favour in the same school her own children attend, where she was able to pay the price of one for two of them thanks to a promo the school ran at the beginning of the school year in September.

Some may wonder that if she were Favour’s mother, would she have allowed her daughter to sell rather than go to school?

Mrs Mercy Agunbiade does similar business in front of Oke-Ira Health Centre in Ogba, Lagos. Late in November, while schools were rounding up examinations for the first term, her children, Jeremiah and Tosin, were seen playing around.

Mrs Agunbiade said they were not in school because she could not pay their fees. She said she owed a total of N62,000 for both of them – N32,000 for Jeremiah, a Primary Four pupil, and N30,000 for Tosin who is in Primary Two.

Mrs Agunbiade said they did not used to owe fees but things got awry when her husband, a baker, lost his job from Tantalisers, a fast food company.

With tears in her eyes, she said: “My husband is a professional baker but since he lost his job things have been difficult. He used the money he had to buy motorcycle but the motorcycle was second hand and is always giving problems. When we couldn’t pay the children’s school fees, they were sent home. I am trying to take a loan from a Microfinance Bank to pay their fees,” she said.

On two different days (October 4 and November 8), this reporter spotted a blind woman begging for alms with young children around Agidingbi bus stop, Ikeja during early morning rush hour.

The first time, the woman who gave her name simply as Opeyemi, was with a girl of about 10-12 years old.

When asked why her daughter was not in school, the blind woman said “She did not go today”.

When asked what school she attends, Maryam answered, “Primary School Itangodo” – a school that does not exist in that area.

The second time, Opeyemi was begging with a younger child, also a girl she claimed was her youngest child. When asked why she was not in school Opeyemi said she sometimes delayed the child to help her beg for alms but claimed that she attended school. On other days she said the girl helps her in the evening. She said her (Opeyemi’s) younger brother was helping send the girl’s two older siblings to school.

She said they came from Ketu to beg in Agidingbi every Ojo Alamisi.

When asked what school she attends, Opeyemi gestured to the young girl to answer. “God is Able School” and in “Primary Three”.

Efforts to trace Opeyemi to find if she would be found with another child proved abortive.

Though majority of out-of-school children can be found in Northern  Nigeria, the Southwest also contributes over 1.3 million children to the list.

According to Eduplana, a non- governmental organisation that provides education data analysis, there are 158,797 children not in school in Ogun State, and 229,264 in Lagos State. Others are: Oyo (463280), Osun (260,555), Ondo (113,746) and Ekiti (99,778).

Should these children not get the needed investment in their education and health, they may be numbered among the 40 per cent of the world’s poorest people projected would live in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo by 2050, according to the Goalkeepers 2018 Report which tracks progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) yearly.

The Universal Basic Education (UBE) Law of 2004 states that the first nine years of basic education is free and compulsory, and stipulates a jail term for parents that do not send their wards to school. However, little seems to be done to implement the law.

Orondaam Otto, founder of Slum2School, a non-governmental organisation that helps to take children off the streets and supports them through school, said government needed to do more to implement the UBE Law. He said the out-of-school problem in the Southwest should also get the needed attention it deserves, adding that Slum2School makes efforts to get Government to fulfill the policies.

He said: “There are policies of government that ensures that every child is given opportunity to get quality basic education. But they are not being implemented. You still see children on the streets hawking whereas they should be in school. We need those policies to be implemented. If they are, if Government takes responsibility and ensure there are punishments – which they are but not being implemented. The Child Rights Act that prohibits children from being abused – because (not going to school) is a form of abuse. As Government, institutions, individuals, corporate organisations, it is our responsibility to ensure that every child gets that basic protection.”

Chairman, Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LSUBEB), Dr Ganiyu Sopeyin, said the board was doing its best to ensure children of school age were in school. He said various departments (special duties, quality assurance, social mobilisation) of the board monitor regularly to get children off the streets – with the help of NGOs.

“We are doing a lot in this area. A lot of NGOs are recognised by SUBEB. They help a lot in bringing the children to school. Even after we have concluded admission, they still bring them to us and we encourage the NGOs by placing the children in school.

“Apart from that there is a law banning school-aged children from trading on the street, serving as house maids. Government is really passionate about ensuring they are not on the streets. We put machinery in place to check it,” he said.

When told that this reporter had interacted with some children on the streets, he responded, “you (this reporter) are also part of the society. If you see any such thing that you feel we need to do something about, bring it to our notice.”

Sopeyin said beyond enforcement, getting poor parents to send their wards to school required a lot of advocacy, which he said the board did regularly.

On his part, Otto believes poverty was not enogh reason for parents to keep their wards out of school as it would only worsen the problem.

“If the parents do not have resources to support their children to school, they would not be in school. So poverty plays a great role but illiteracy also plays a greater role and they are interwoven because when you’re poor, and you are illiterate, you will pass that on to your children,” he said.

For children that have to support their families’ income, Otto suggested they could do so after school.

“A child goes to school in the morning and sells in the evening. If we ensure that these policies are put in place, parents will understand that keeping my child out of school the whole day has a negative effect on our family. It takes lots of enlightenment, sensitisation and advocacy and effective communication with caregivers that what we are doing is not just for now but for the future,” he said.

In 2019, Slum2School has set the target of getting 5,000 children into school in five states  (Lagos, Oyo, Borno, Abuja and Rivers).  It has got the commitment of a company, Eat’N’Go, to sponsor 1,000 of these children. The firm will be investing N51million into the project, which its CEO, Patrick McMichael, said would be taken from the bottom line.

Otto urged other firms to partner with Slum2School to get the remaining 4,000 children off the streets in 2019.

Beyond private sector support in tackling issues in the education sector, Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers NUT Lagos Wing, Mr Adedoyin Adesina, said the government needs to spend more on education.

He said: “We have not got our priorities right in this country. What UNESCO recommended is between 15 and 26 per cent of the annual budget. There is no nation that can develop above the level of her education because it is what we put in that we are going to reap.”

Adesina’s call for increased funding mirrors what Mark Suzman, Chief Strategy Officer and President Global Policy and Advocacy, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said Nigeria and other African countries must do if she is to escape the bleak projections in the Goalkeepers Report.

The report states that by 2050 Nigeria is projected to have a population of 429 million people – 152 million of whom will be extremely poor. Sixty per cent of Nigeria’s population by then will also be aged 25 or under.

Nigeria Suzman told reporters on the sidelines of the launch of the report on December 1 in Johannesburg, South Africa, that Nigeria was not investing enough in health and education compared to other African countries with commensurate wealth. He said countries like Ghana, Ehtiopia, and Rwanda were doing better in such areas because of increased investment.

To prevent a bleak future, Suzman said Nigeria and the nine other African countries (DR Congo, Madagascar, Somalia, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Guinea-Bissau (predicted to be home to 90 per cent of world’s poorest people by 2050) should turn their high population of young people into their strength by investing in their health and education.

“Nigeria will actually get poorer on per capita basis according to the IMF. Youth unemployment is significantly higher in some African countries. Basic education, nutrition, health, if you don’t invest in them now, it will have an implication on the future. Investing in today’s children and young people will give benefits in the next 20 years,” he said.