By Ijeoma UKAZU
Many children find it difficulty reading or tackling questions involving maths, some have trouble in processing instructions and organising their thoughts as a result, this affects foundational learning skills.
In a recently released Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, MICS6 result carried out by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistic, 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 percent have foundational reading skills and 25 percent have foundational numeracy skills.
The worrying statistics further explained by experts indicates 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 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 has 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. They are usually in “competition” with their friend’s children who are same age as theirs.
Chinwe said this unhealthy competition goes a long way in the academic performance and learning skills of the child whose mental ability might no fit into the new class forced on him by his/her parents.
While school owners must look beyond the financial gains and fear of not having new enrollees but should enforcement of the right academic standards for learners in order to achieve the right outcome for children, pointing that parents have the fundamental duty pay more attention to the learning needs of their children.
Some children 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 towards not having the time as they were busy watching their favourite cartoon or no proper monitoring
The young lad, is also worried about the poor performance by his classmates who fall in this category and hopes that parents would dedicate more time in 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 ******** School believes that every child has the potential to thrive if given the right support and environment.
The maths genus hopes to be a role model to young children to devote more time into learning in order to achieve their full potential.
Attributing such learning deficiency to a number of 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 of that age range having such issues.
She said, “From experience, what I think could be the cause is the family setting. Most parents are joggling their jobs and the home front and has no time for learning with their kids. Learning starts from infancy.
“Secondly, most children has dyslexia. They have issue reading, speaking and writing leading to learning struggle. Some children has Dyscalculia. These category of children has issues learning maths. They don’t have the mental ability to assimilate maths – for such 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 challenge should be handled by teachers with disciplined skills, adding that this does not in any way involve any form of corporal punishment 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 up to the occasion and save the falling educational standard in Nigeria.
The issues
Okereafor suggests that the quality of teachers and the learning environment for every child should be looked into by stakeholders in the educational sector from bottom to the top of the academic ladder.
Continuing, 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 and society share blame
Okereafor points 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 socio-economic 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 primary one to be more successful at reading comprehension,” The child psychologist said.
How can this be tackled?
Okereafor suggests Nigeria should have to have an evidence based national educational plan that is regularly reviewed and executed across all state levels.
“Institutionalizing teacher professional development and continous professional development as well. 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.”
She calls on government at all levels to fund and subsidise training for low cost schools as well as investing in educational teaching aid development and improve educational facilities, stressing that learning has to be in a conduscive environment and has to be fun to be memorable.
Education stakeholders should keep up and pace up on parent education about allowing their children go to school.
Emphasis should be layed on parent education on the impact of early exposure to screen on learning outcomes; de-emphasize junk education and facilitate mass literacy drives in private and public schools. Children should have access to age-matched reading books for fun and for 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 Nigerian state of the educational outcomes of the Nigerian children is critical even from the preschool years.