Beyond Free Basic Education: How Nigeria Can Target Youth Empowerment

Youths in Nigeria often need to be given a hand, either in funds, education, training, or platform. This assistance becomes crucial as they grow into young Nigerians who are becoming part of the robust and extremely diverse workforce. One of the best and most effective ways of empowering youths is…well, to do it before they become youths, through free basic education. 

This is important for obvious reasons, one being that from late teenage years to late twenties, most of the operations they’d do, especially basic business operations, require relatively simple but fundamental functions learned very early in their formative years. This then means that education obtained at this level becomes important. As such, whatever is being done to empower youths will involve them making money. They’d need a basic understanding of things like math and the use of English.

Why Basic Education is Key for Youth Development? 

Due to the importance of this crucial aspect of development, a deficiency in this regard will limit the affected youth’s opportunities. Basic education is the most important part of development, as it affects how a person interacts with the world. 

Some high-paying jobs and skills, especially people skills and tech skills, can be self-taught. This is one of the things we do here at Inside Success Nigeria, where we offer very affordable training to youths to build and sharpen up their skills. These trainings would need participants to have had strong developmental foundations, though.

In this regard, the Federal Government (FG) has done well to provide free basic education for everyone, through the Universal Basic Education (UBE) program, but is that enough? I am not saying that the government is not doing enough. That would be wrong, considering that Nigeria is already incurring huge expenses in providing free education for children. 

There’s Free Basic Education Available, What Then is the Issue?

Issue 1: Other expenses involved

The issue is that even with free basic education available, some children – especially from low-income families – still cannot access it, because the other costs involved in “going to school” are things that many parents still worry about, regardless of how seemingly inexpensive they appear to be. 

Items that still need to be paid for despite free education provided:

• Notebooks
• Textbooks and workbooks
• School uniforms
• School bags
• Food
• Transportation to and from the school

All these items are not covered by the UBE program. For a family finding it difficult to make ends meet, the priority won’t be buying school items, and understandably so. These families then have a decision to make, and a cruel decision at that, because the feeding of the family is as important as the need for the child to get a basic education. It’s a non-choice. 

Issue 2: Poor infrastructure

Unfortunately, this is not the only issue preventing parents from sending their children to school. Infrastructure is a big problem in many – mainly rural – areas of the country. This means that several children don’t have conducive schools to go to. Some schools have no roofs, ceilings, seats, chalkboards, or tables. Many schools have deplorable drainage systems. Some have these problems all at once. 

This particular issue affects children from all backgrounds because parents who can afford private schools spend more on their children’s basic education, and those who can’t, simply have no where to send their children to. 

How does FG tackle this issue?

1. Fix the public schools in rural areas

Youth empowerment is crucial, and the dilapidated schools in these rural areas need to be fixed. This means more funds need to be allocated from the Federal budget towards this cause. Conducive learning environments are one of the biggest indicators of success in children.

2. Monitor funds disbursed for renovations

In addition to more funds, stricter supervision needs to be enforced, as there is a high tendency for funds to be disbursed and it not be used for the originally intended purposes. This would ensure that in addition to students not needing to pay tuition fees at such a basic level, they also have a school they can go to that is conducive for learning and development. 

3. Partner with sponsors to cover the cost of school items

This one depends on the good will of powerful people, but it is a reliable strategy to use if the government wants more children to get the fundamental aspect of development right. Partnership with donors will be a more manageable strategy. Covering the cost by themselves would be unmanageable. This is due to the intricate nature of running costs. Many who have the means prefer to put their money directly into causes, rather than give it to the government.

Conclusion

The free basic education already provided is good, but the emphasis needs to be on youth development and empowerment, and most importantly, should be on making sure that children can actually have access to these schools, in order for their development to be at a level that enriches the intellectual grade of the country. 

There are more measures that can be taken, but these two are by far going to be the most effective, and ultimately have the highest chances of being successfully implemented.

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