Ijeoma UKAZU
Many children find it difficult to read or tackle questions involving mathematics, while some have trouble processing instructions and organising their thoughts as a result affecting their foundational learning skills.
In a recently released Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, MICS6, carried out by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, NBS, with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and other partners shows that among Nigerian children and adolescents aged 7-14 years only 27 per cent have foundational reading skills and 25 per cent have foundational numeracy skills.
The worrying statistics further explained by experts indicate that children are indeed going to school but are not learning. This, they say calls for immediate action by all education stakeholders to improve children’s learning skills to avert looming danger.
Searching for answers to why children and adolescents are not learning, The Abuja Inquirer Correspondent in her recent trip to Rivers State, Port Harcourt for a two-day media dialogue organised by UNICEF interviewed a school teacher resident in the state, Mrs Enyinnaya Chinwe who tutors lower primary (Primary 1 to 3) in a private primary school expressed concern about the MICS6 report.
She said, “This goes to tell you that the future of the Nigerian child is already tampered with. According to her, problems such as this have some root causes. One of which stems from the home.”Citing an instance, Chinwe said, some parents whose children are in private schools forcefully “promote” their children to the next class knowing the child has all tendency not to do well academically in that class. The are usually in “competition” with their friend’s children who are the same age as theirs.
According to her, unhealthy competition goes a long way in affecting the academic performance and learning skills of the child whose mental ability might not fit into the new class forced on him by his/her parents.
She said school owners must look beyond the financial gains and enforce the right academic standards for learners to achieve learning outcomes for children, pointing out that parents also have the fundamental duty to pay more attention to the learning needs of their children.
Some lack concentration while learning, says Gabriel Ebuka, a seven-year-old primary two pupil resident in Port Harcourt.
Ebuka tells The Abuja Inquirer, “Some of my classmates bring back their homework undone. When asked by the class teacher why their homework is not done, their response mostly points toward not having the time as they were busy watching their favourite cartoon no proper monitoring
The young lad is also worried about the poor performance of his classmates who fall in this category and hopes that parents would dedicate more time to the academics of their children as well as moderate screen time for better results.
From a different view, nine-year-old Kamsiyochukwu Epiphania, who grabbed the second position at the just concluded Africa Mathematics Competition in Port Harcourt from Children Choice School, believes that every child has the potential to thrive if given the right support and environment.
The maths genius is concerned about poor performance and hopes to be a role model while calling on young children to devote more time to learning to achieve their full potential.
Attributing such learning deficiency to several issues, the Guidance and Counsellor of DE-TAJ Crèche, Nursery, Primary and Secondary school located in Ogba, Lagos state said “The decline in foundational learning and numeracy skills has gone on for years now. It is common to see children between seven to 14 having such issues.
She said, “From experience, this problem could stem from the family. Most parents are juggling their jobs and the home front and have no time instituting learning with their kids.
“Secondly, most children have dyslexia. They have issue reading, speaking and writing leading to learning struggles. Some children have Dyscalculia. This category of children has issues learning maths. They don’t have the mental ability to assimilate maths. For this category of children, to get the best of them would be to teach them one-on-one.”
Okungbowa, who is also the school’s administrative officer, suggests that children with such learning challenges should be handled by teachers with disciplined skills, adding that this does not in any way involve corporal punishment, abuse or violence.
In an interview with the lead child psychologist and clinical director at Nurture Child Development Clinic, Lagos state, Mabel Okereafor, said this could happen when children are exposed to learning and learning does not happen, noting that both parents and school owners must rise to the occasion and save the falling educational standard in Nigeria.
The issues
Okereafor noted that the quality of teachers and the learning environment for every child should be looked into by stakeholders in the educational sector from both bottoms to the top of the academic ladder.
She adds, “The quality of instruction, poorly harmonized and unstandardized curricular can be causal factors. For instance, phonological processing is foundational to reading success. Most low-cost schools do not use evidence-based phonics programs.
“Reading research show that children who learn to read using phonics, master the art of reading compared to teaching children to spell-to read; memorizing words spellings.”
On numeracy, the child psychologist tells The Abuja Inquirer that, “When it comes to numeracy, it is the same issue; curriculum, unqualified teachers and instructional methods. When you have teachers that are not professional educators and have not been taken through basic training to qualify them for classroom instruction, that can be a factor. They will teach poorly and the outcomes will be poor.
“Ill-equipped schools especially in the foundational years when teaching should be concrete; most low-cost schools that serve the larger population do not use instructional aids or manipulatives. Math/Numeracy must first be concrete before it becomes abstract for young children,” she adds.
Parents, society and malnutrition share the blame
Okereafor points out lack of parental education, poverty and in recent times premature exposure to devices.
“Poverty and poor nutrition in the early years had been proven to compromise early brain development in children. Add to that, possibilities of recurrent medical issues or socioeconomic factors such as parents earning capacity to place their children in regulated schools that have a measure of standards, missed attendance, overcrowded classrooms with poor facilities, and in extreme cases, a total absence of educational facilities in some rural areas -These are real odds stacked against the learning outcome of the typical Nigerian child.
Explaining further, she said, “On the other side of the divide of poverty and poor access to educational opportunities, there is a surge in the number of children who have early access to devices and spend too much time in front of screens.”
As a result, “More children are developing attentional issues and delays in language development. Children need to develop a rich vocabulary before they get into a primary one to be more successful at reading comprehension,” The psychologist said.
How can this be tackled?
Okereafor suggests Nigeria should have an evidence-based national educational plan that is regularly reviewed and executed across all state levels.
“Institutionalizing teacher professional development and making it continuous. The government should do more in terms of monitoring and evaluation, not blind investments. We need to know what works for the Nigerian child and the Nigerian teacher in terms of quality indicators. Implement, measure, review and consistently implement for the outcomes to improve.”
The government at all levels should fund and subsidise training for low-cost schools as well as invest in educational teaching aid development and improve educational facilities, stressing that learning has to be in a conducive environment and has to be fun to be memorable.
The emphasis, she said should be placed on parent education on the impact of early exposure to screen on learning outcomes; de-emphasize junk education and facilitate mass literacy schools in private and public schools. Children should have access to age-matched reading books for fun and learning.
Okereafor further adds that opportunities to be explored are quite expansive, we just need to be more intentional and data-driven in our educational policies development, implementation and outcomes measure in the country.
She maintains that ownership of the state of the educational outcomes of Nigerian children is critical even from the preschool years.
Stock photo: A girl-child with her book open in class.
