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Clearly, a sense of direction is lacking, and with it the institutional resolve to see through the penned-down writs and resolutions designed to reform the literacy landscape for the world’s destitute. By adopting an unobtrusive modus operandi, the UN makes the egregious error of lulling in the complacent calm before the storm, inadvertently tolerating the incongruities of unscrupulous states in order not to ‘rock the boat’ of diplomatic relations, until the dying minute is breached and the mad scramble commences to rescue the charring chestnuts of Sub-Sahara’s illiterates from the fire, ineluctably to nil effect.
This rudderless situation should be checked immediately, and this can be done by taking expedited measures to reinforce the operative capacities of the UN Development Groups and Resident Coordinators in respective host countries. More specifically, they should be accorded overarching powers of supervision to ensure national education policies are streamlined with those of the MDG implementation policies and regularly evaluated for strict compliance.
Implementing this may prove daunting primarily due to the political ramifications, whereat nations may protest an affront to state sovereignty, but by advocating its requisiteness as a Fast Track Initiative, and given that these countries are signatories to the Dakar accord which typifies the EFA International Strategy as a flexible document, the required administrative modifications in the chain of command of the host education ministries should be acquiesced to without undue pettifoggery. Only then will the channels of funding from source to destination be reliably monitored and accounted for.
Ascertaining secure funding conduits is only half the problem, however. While providing primary education at no cost is an altruistic and laudable gesture, the methodology by which this is to be attained in the third world is impractical. The only way it may be envisioned to work in its present format is as a temporary measure, because ultimately the external funds will run out, and it must be realised that for any country crawling out the dregs of mediocrity, dynamics of development are propelled by economics, not education.
When, for instance, Nigeria sold the bulk of its offshore oil blocs recently to China’s oil multinational, CNOOC[6], the caveat for this exchange was CNOOC’s commitment to invest in Nigeria’s dilapidated refineries, steel and power industries, as well as general infrastructure. No mention of educational leveraging was made in the agreement.
If the ideals of education are accelerated in isolation, national economies of scale stand to retrogress, because more qualified individuals will be graduated than the employment market can absorb, the endpoint of which is unemployment at an unprecedented magnitude. In other words, to ensure education remains a priority, incentives to motivate private sector investment must be factored into the literacy drive. For such collaboration between the educational and private sectors to prove mutually beneficial, an overhaul in the present formal education system of the Sub-Saharan region is required, more specifically, a deliberate emphasis on technical secondary education.
This branch of education, which focuses on specialization of technological skills by its students in various scientific fields such as machinery workmanship, mobile telephony, telecommunications, electrical/electronic engineering, food processing and the like, not only equips its graduates with the requisite expertise to be easefully assimilated into technology-intensive companies or industries, but also enables them pursue entrepreneurship using their expertise in these disciplines.
This is very important in developing countries, where the early conversion of education certificates into paying vocations is crucial. In the past this tier of education has existed largely in the form of informal apprenticeships. By sponsoring the establishment of technical high schools, a wide variety of industry-based concerns in the private sector will be ensuring a steady string of well trained professionals into their employ and considerably scale down expenditure on orientation and employee training programmes. Additionally, as school proprietors, they can ensure other students not inducted into their companies do not wallow in the unemployment flanks by according them loans upon graduation to set up their own practices in the form of company shares, as part of a special micro-franchise scheme.
These shares will serve as collateral to obtain bank loans of a stipulated substantial value and may be paid off as their businesses break even. This generates the multiplier effect of progressively expanding the company capital base, thus making education funding a viable business investment. It would then justifiably be in the interest of these companies to further amplify the quality of staff recruited into its rank and file by investing from the earliest stage, i.e. primary education, and committing finances even up to the tertiary levels by proffering scholarships, paying salaries, stocking libraries, or equipping laboratories and workshops. The novelty of such a conjecture requires that more in-depth analysis be undertaken to exhaustively surmise its merits, but suffice it to say here that the prospect of sustaining primary education most veritably stands a better chance as a synergy of books and business.
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Writer Profile
Manny Maurice
Manny Maurice is a youth activist and Vice President of the Future Leaders Network, Nigeria. Also a petroleum engineering graduate, he enjoys penning down commentaries on burning socio-political questions, and runs a blog of his opinions at http://thepayzone.blogspot.com.
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Comments
Sandy Mae Gaspay | Apr 18th, 2007
This article is an eye opener for everyone. This just goes to show that achieving the millenium development goals requires a consolidated effort between the helpers and the "helped".
Zorica Vukovic | May 30th, 2007
Very resourseful and moving article!
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