One in five out-of-school children in the world Nigerian — UNESCO

COUNTRIES of the World, Nigeria inclusive, cannot achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030, a new report released by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has said.

The report, which was released on Monday from Paris, to coincide with the 2022 Internal Day of Education by the UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics and the Global Education Monitoring Report, found, according to their own benchmarks, that countries could not to achieve goal 4 of SDGs by 2030.

While it is estimated that at least 10.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria, the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF)representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, said recently that a full one-third of Nigerian children are not in school, and one in five out-of-school children in the world is a Nigerian.

Stakeholders have also agreed that the crisis in Nigeria’s education sector is exacerbated by insurgency in the north-eastern part of Nigeria and recent attacks on schools and kidnapping of students and teachers for ransom.

Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Silvia Montoya, said almost halfway to the deadline, the process has shown that even by their own assessment, most countries are not expected to get close to the 2030 goal.

She said that this is a wake-up call for world leaders as millions of children will continue to miss out on school and high-quality learning.

UIS is the official United Nations’ repository for statistics in the fields of education, science and technology, culture and communications.

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It was gathered that the report entitled: ‘National SDG 4 benchmarks: Fulfilling Our Commitments,’ compiled the findings from the culmination of a two-year global process convened by the UNESCO, in response to the UN secretary-general’s call on countries to do ‘benchmarking for progress’ and follow the ‘Education 2030 Framework for Action’ to address the accountability deficit associated with longer-term targets.

Participating countries identified their targets for 2025 and 2030 relatively to six key SDG 4 indicators on: early childhood education attendance; school attendance; completion; minimum proficiency in reading and Mathematics; trained teachers; and public education expenditure.

The commitment made was to accelerate the level of progress between now and the deadline, which is relative to the rate at which countries are able to achieve from 2000 to 2015.

The findings showed that even if countries reached their benchmarks, the world would still fall short of the ambition set out in SDG 4, even before taking into account the potential consequences of COVID-19 on educational development.

“It is a real step forward that some two-thirds of countries are realistically assessing their chances of achieving the SDG 4 goals. It is critical that nations hold themselves accountable to their commitments for their children.

“However, almost halfway to our deadline, the process has shown that, even by their own assessment, most countries are not expected to get close to the 2030 goal.

“The next step must be to encourage all countries to submit benchmarks and determine which policies to prioritise before 2030,” Silvia Montoya said.

The report showed that according to their own measures, Latin America and the Caribbean and Central and Southern Asia are on course to achieve universal early childhood education.

“Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and Western Asia will not achieve this goal, where it is estimated that roughly two in three children will be enrolled in early childhood education by 2030 (up from less than half currently).

“According to their plans, all regions will meet or be very close to achieving universal primary education. Challenges will remain in sub-Saharan Africa where 8 per cent of children of primary school age are still predicted to be out of school in 2030 (down from 19 per cent currently).

“By 2030, countries in sub-Saharan Africa expect to be able to achieve a reduction in the rate of out-of-school upper secondary age youth from 47 per cent to 32 per cent; those in central and Southern Asia are expected to reduce their rate from 32 per cent to 17per cent. In North Africa and Western Asia, the benchmarks show that countries believe they can reduce the rate from 28 per cent to 14 per cent and from 19per cent to 11per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“The process has delivered a reality check with regards to the goal of universal completion of secondary education by 2030, which no region is on track to achieve. Completion rates expect to land at 89 per cent at lower secondary and 72 per cent at the upper secondary level by the deadline.

“Countries are least confident about the ability to accelerate progress in Mathematical skills: by 2030, globally, benchmarks show that an expected 26 per cent will still not be able to do basic Mathematics in the early grades, 32 per cent at the end of primary and 34 per cent at the end of lower secondary.

“The percentage of trained teachers is expected to increase between 2015 and 2030 to over 90 per cent at each level of education.

“The fastest growth is expected at the pre-primary education level, from 70 per cent to 94 per cent. Still, by the deadline, countries in sub-Saharan Africa expect that, despite their best efforts, over a quarter of teachers at the pre-primary level will remain untrained,” the report stated.

Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, Manos Antoninis, on his part said these nationally determined targets did not yet take into account the possible impact of COVID-19 on education which has significantly slowed down and might have even rolled back education progress.

“It is also troubling that a fifth of the countries do not have plans with targets, so there is still work to be done before a full realistic picture of where we aim to be by 2030 is available,” he added.

According to him, the current benchmarks would be reviewed in 2022 to see if countries deem a significant revision of expectations as a result of COVID-19 school closures is necessary.