African child deserves better attention before age 10 ― Ezekwesili, Obaseki, others

Former Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, said African children would need to be given better and well-deserved attention, particularly as regards their rights to quality education before they get to age 10 so as to be able to truly learn and grow to become responsible adults.

She said now was the right time for all the stakeholders starting with respective country leaders and policymakers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats, educators, and all other stakeholders to play their roles in this regard.

Dr Ezekwesili gave this position on Tuesday at a launch of Human Capital Africa (HCA), which is an accountability and advocacy initiative aimed at improving early learning outcomes for children across sub-Saharan Africa.

According to her, in a statement made available by the HCA’s Media Consultant, Mr. Ozioma Ubabukoh, more than 100,000 children are born in Sub-Saharan Africa daily with a majority of them being denied the opportunities by the older generations, to build the right levels of capabilities to make it in life.

She said this was because these children are not being given the right education, the situation making nine out of 10 of them be unable to read a simple sentence with meaning at that age of 10 or 11.

She said studies have shown that somebody who is unable to read a simple sentence at 10 is unlikely to learn much in the classroom, thus making it difficult for real learning to take place.

She said the same problem comes to play when considering children’s prowess in basic numeracy even as Africa is the only region where girls learn in some cases, less than boys.

Dr Ezekwesili, who is the CEO of Human Capital Africa, noted that gaining these foundational skills is critical to progressing in school and learning other subjects, participating in technical education, and later becoming productive members of the workforce.

“So, how then can we ensure future generations participate in the increasingly digital world when they cannot do basic mathematics?” she asked rhetorically.

She said these challenges are what the HCA set out to address by closing the existing wide gap between evidence and action to improve learning outcomes for children under 10 and also to foster partnership with public and private sector leaders as well as civil society to move human capital to the level of guaranteeing real development for the continent.

Also speaking, former President of Malawi and Chairperson of HCA’s advisory board, Joyce Banda equally acknowledged the importance of high-quality education, saying it is one of the most basic rights of all children globally.

She said it was but disheartening that the older generations in Africa had continued to deny children this important right.

Banda said the state of education in Africa is truly shocking as only around 70 per cent of children finish primary school while less than half of the numbers complete lower secondary school and only about 10 to 15 per cent complete tertiary education

She said it was more worrisome that real learning is not even taking place as nine out of 10 children according to her cannot read a simple sentence with understanding at aged 10.

“Once that is the case and situation is not resolved, especially by the older generations to give these children chance to join productive workforce and live an independent life in future, things will continue to get worse on the continent,” she said.

“So, that is why it is necessary for all the stakeholders to rise to the challenge and transform learning outcomes for the African child, particularly at the foundation level,” she stressed.

She said these could be done through a number of ways including urging the policymakers to stop wasting time but rather to commit time, resources, and effort to improving learning in the classroom, advocating governments to shift focus towards real learning at the foundation level, to help ministers and policy implementers to access the best available practices and resources on how to take the right actions that will make desirable change happening.

In his own contribution, former Tanzanian president, Dr Jakaya kikwete, said it is truly the responsibility of governments, leaders, teachers, parents as well as communities to deliver quality education to children irrespective of background.

Also, the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, said Africa leaders for decades had devoted their developmental programmes towards mineral exploration with the hope to use proceeds from such efforts to gain economic prosperity but the efforts have not yielded tangible results.

He, like other speakers, equally urged particularly the leaders in government and outside the government and every other stakeholder to invest hugely in human capital development beginning with children at their foundation level.

Among others in attendance at the launch include the Olu of Warri’s wife, Olori Atuwatse III; Co-founder and former Group Executive of Sahara Group, Tonye Cole; Alero-Ayida Otobo, Country Director at Nexford University, Olamidun Majekodunni; Dr Modupe Adefeso-Olateju of HCA; Chairman of Pacesetters Schools, Kenneth Imansuangbon, and students.

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