ADVERSE EFFECTS OF INSECURITY ON EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
The issue of insecurity has been topping the list of challenges in the country and it is a fact that the havoc it has caused is sadly immeasurable.
The government has taken several measures to curb this hazardous activity, but there still seems to be no lasting solution as we have matters arising daily.
As of today, we have millions of children who are currently out of school due to insecurity challenges in the country, and children who be 90% victims of this circumstance have majored in the northern part of the country.
Forty percent of Nigerian children aged between 6 and 11 do not attend any primary school with the northern region reporting the poorest school attendance ratio in the nation, especially for girls.
Despite a substantial increase in net enrolment rates in recent years, it is totaled that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school.
The northern part of Nigeria in the last few years have faced insecurity setbacks from time to time, most towns, cities, and villages have been rendered vacant, families are homeless and incapacitated, continual loss of lives and properties, starvation that leads to hunger and a whole lot of economic/societal disasters.
Boosted enrolment rates have also developed challenges in ensuring quality education and adequate learning satisfaction as resources are spread more thinly across a growing number of students.
It is not rare to see cases of 100 pupils per teacher or students sitting under trees outside the school building because of the inadequacy of classrooms.
To crown it all, children are left with little or no option of education as there is no serene environment for learning, their education is retarded and stunted as they have limited or no access at all to learning, most of them eventually turn out to become individuals against their wish.
However, some of the visible adverse effects of insecurity on education in Nigeria are enumerated below:
- EARLY MARRIAGE: Parents are forced to betroth their girl child to older men as they can no longer fend for them properly and adequately unlike the previous days.
- BANDITRY: The issue of banditry has been quite alarming. Young children meant to be in school are roaming around and eventually turn out to be hoodlums or nuisance to the society.
- Increased level of barbaric behavior in the sense that children are held captive in olden days lifestyle, they’re sidelined from present-day civilization.
- RETARDED/STAGNANT LEARNING: Learning becomes redundant and dampened when children have little or no access to proper education. When this happens, it practically reduces the amount of knowledge a child acquires.
- Little or no access to technology/ICT
- Molestation
