Celebration of the day of the African Child on 16th day of June of every year comes in memory of many school children killed in Soweto, South Africa in 1976 while they were protesting against the poor quality of education being offered them by the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Our organization, Child Development and Concern Foundation (CDCF) cannot fail to celebrate the day in view of the cardinal objective of our organization which is “ensuring equal access to quality education for all children”. This cardinal objective of ours aligns with the theme of the celebration of this year’s Day of African Child which is “Education for All Children in Africa: The Time is Now”.
Education as we all know is the key to development. The theme of this year’s celebration is very apt in view of the yearning needs for development of Africa as a continent in which Nigeria has a giant role to play. Nigeria as a nation is so far not doing well towards the realization of true development of Africa in view of the fact that Nigeria has the population of 10.5 million out-of-school children (OOSC) which is the largest in the world. Also in West Africa, 46% of primary school aged children not in school are Nigerians. Globally, one out of five children not in school are Nigerians. These are indices showing Nigerian government’s nonchalant attitude to the education of our future leaders. All various efforts to eliminate this problem has not yielded any significant positive result. This is a clear manifestation of the fact that Nigerian government is not doing enough to arrest the problem of out-of-school children. If this problem is not properly addressed, it’s a manifestation of the fact that we don’t want to eliminate the problem of insurgency and terrorism that is bedeviling our nation.
There is the need to address the problem of out-of-school children holistically. Some of the ways to address it are;
1. To have the political will to arrest the problem of out-of-school children. Government must engage all the critical stakeholders to come together and address the problem.
2. There should be a significant increase in the education budget of the Federal Government as well as the State Governments. The budget must be prudently and judiciously managed.
3. Government should stop politicizing the issue of out-of-school children. There should be visible evidence of government’s determination to significantly reduce if not to totally eliminate the rate of out-of-school children.
As this year’s theme of the celebration of the Day of African Child clearly states that the time is NOW to give education to all children, government must heed to the clarion call. A nation that cares for the future which truly and rightly belongs to the children of today must give the right care to the children.
We at CDCF wish to congratulate all our children doing well in schools on this year’s celebration of the Day of the African Child. We are imploring you to remain highly focused and be prepared to take over the leadership with high level of responsibility in your best interest.
Thank you.