Education For The Less-Privileged Is Up To Us!

Articles

January 24, 2020

Education is defined as a learning process for an individual to attain knowledge, new skills, beliefs, etc. Education is an enlightening process.

The educational sector is the bedrock of development in any country or region and lots of attention should be paid to it. Education is one constant of our life on earth as knowledge must be passed on and if done correctly the fruits are as sweet as they are endless. Every child and everyone should have access to a sound education. Unfortunately, the quality and standard of same in Nigeria is poor because it has not been paid adequate attention.

We want to highlight two main causes for the poor state and standard of teaching in the Country.

1. Poor Funding: The educational system in the country is overseen by the ministry of education at Federal and State level and Local Government level. The first and possibly the biggest challenge facing education in Nigeria is adequate funding across all levels.

The United Nations recommends that 26 percent of the country’s national budget should go to the education sector. However in 2017, the education sector received less than the recommended percentage. In 2018 only 7.04 percent of the 8.6 trillion budget went towards education.

The effect this has on the sector is deep. Due to the very low budget, the public educational sector is in shambles. Problems such as infrastructure, inadequate supply of materials, lack of teaching aids etc is the result of poor funding.

2. Unaffordable Education: The minimum wage in the country is N18,000 and most homes survive on this. It is extremely difficult for families whose wages are at the minimum wage to send their children to school because of high school fees. Once again if only there was better funding of public schools to provide cheap quality education to children of all backgrounds.

The government hasn’t stepped up and individuals, cooperate bodies and religious organisations need to become more involved. The number of out of school children between the ages of 3 – 18 years in the country is simply appalling.

At Bethesda our mission is to mobilize community resources with the assistance of partners to help children from impoverished backgrounds secure a better future through education. For the last 19 years we have worked with numerous sponsors and donors to provide free and quality education for over 5,000 children from very impoverished backgrounds.

We have produced graduates at both secondary and tertiary levels and given hope to thousands of lives and families. To all our sponsors and donors, we are as pleased as we are thankful for the success so far and we look for to achieving more.

You can make a donation here.