Illiteracy : The north sitting on a time bomb - Masari
Mon Jan 13, 2020 03:28:pm National
1.3K By Afam Jude Offor
Katsina State Governor, Aminu Bello Masari, has warned that the high level of illiteracy prevalent in the northern part of the country may turn into an unmanageable disaster in the near future.
Reviewing activities of armed bandits operating in the area at a news forum in Katsina at the weekend, Masari lamented the rising population of bandits and their families in forests in parts of the north.He described them as worrisome and dangerous ‘‘more so because they are lacking in any forms of education, Islamic or Western’’. We have problems now with the forest people because they have no education of any kind. They do not have Islamic education and they do not have Western education because they have been abandoned in the forest and forgotten. “So these are the kind of children who have come up today, fighting us, fighting the society. If we don’t do more to address it, what will come out of the forest in the next 20 years compared with what we have today, will turn out to be like a child’s play.
Due to lack of education, they only know one pleasure, which is pleasure of the flesh and that is why they keep on producing children in large numbers. I was told this evening that somebody can mobilise over 350 armed men from the forest and we are talking about 350 men without formal schooling, neither Islamic nor Western and they are all married and have children. Masari explained that the development informed the decision of his government to allocate 20 per cent of the 2020 budget to education, apart from funding expected from the Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education Commission. He said: “that is why we continue to emphasize on foundation education, that is, primary and secondary school education. “We believe that once you have sound education at the primary and secondary levels, then you can be able to be a better craftsman. Not all of us have to be engineers, doctors and professors but all of us can have what we can do to support our lives, and we will do it better if we have a certain level of education. “Even an educated vulcanizer will do better than an illiterate vulcanizer. A meat seller who is educated will do better in the trade than someone who did not go to school. So, we have to move in and that is why it is important we restore normalcy in the forest by taking and take education to them there. Masari also listed the Almajiri issue as another source of concern, arguing that, “in Katsina, we have about 996,000 out-of-school children roaming the streets, according to figures from the United Nations.
Reviewing activities of armed bandits operating in the area at a news forum in Katsina at the weekend, Masari lamented the rising population of bandits and their families in forests in parts of the north.He described them as worrisome and dangerous ‘‘more so because they are lacking in any forms of education, Islamic or Western’’. We have problems now with the forest people because they have no education of any kind. They do not have Islamic education and they do not have Western education because they have been abandoned in the forest and forgotten. “So these are the kind of children who have come up today, fighting us, fighting the society. If we don’t do more to address it, what will come out of the forest in the next 20 years compared with what we have today, will turn out to be like a child’s play.
Due to lack of education, they only know one pleasure, which is pleasure of the flesh and that is why they keep on producing children in large numbers. I was told this evening that somebody can mobilise over 350 armed men from the forest and we are talking about 350 men without formal schooling, neither Islamic nor Western and they are all married and have children. Masari explained that the development informed the decision of his government to allocate 20 per cent of the 2020 budget to education, apart from funding expected from the Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education Commission. He said: “that is why we continue to emphasize on foundation education, that is, primary and secondary school education. “We believe that once you have sound education at the primary and secondary levels, then you can be able to be a better craftsman. Not all of us have to be engineers, doctors and professors but all of us can have what we can do to support our lives, and we will do it better if we have a certain level of education. “Even an educated vulcanizer will do better than an illiterate vulcanizer. A meat seller who is educated will do better in the trade than someone who did not go to school. So, we have to move in and that is why it is important we restore normalcy in the forest by taking and take education to them there. Masari also listed the Almajiri issue as another source of concern, arguing that, “in Katsina, we have about 996,000 out-of-school children roaming the streets, according to figures from the United Nations.
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