 Roedd y bydd yn gweithio drafod y cyffredinol yn cyfnod o'r gwaith fflau'r gweithio'r bwysig o feddwl ar gyfer y cyffredinol, a'r gweithio'r gyffredinol. Mae'r cyffredinol o'r cyffredinol efo'r gwaith yw'r pwysig yn ei gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaith. Yn Nghyrch, y cyffredinol yw'r cyffredinol yma, oedd y cyffredinol ar gyfer y cyffredinol. Well, the big question is how safe are these children if they go into classrooms? Well, joining us to discuss this is educationist and co-founder of trustee education reform innovation team, Bologi Osime, and educational consultant Ikeichi Wogu. Thank you very much, gentlemen and lady for joining us. Thank you. Great. Interesting. I'm going to start with you, Bologi. I remember that we had a conversation about out of school children in 2019. Vividly, I remember. We were in this studio. It was the eve of elections or if I'm not mistaken election day in 2019. And we were still talking about the same thing. Fast forward to 2021. We're still talking about the same thing. And this time, not just about getting kids into classrooms. We're talking about how safe these classrooms can be from destruction, especially at a time when Nigeria is facing its toughest experience with insecurity. So my first big question is how did we even get here? Because now you're advocating on two fronts. In terms of getting here, you know, sometimes I wonder, because this is, as far as I'm concerned, education is a fundamental human right and it's enshrined in the constitution that every child in Nigeria must have education. It must be free and it must be compulsory. So the question is how did we get here in the first place? Because this is something enshrined in that constitution. This is something that is the law by the 2003 Child's Act to protect children that every child must have basic education. So the question is, why is this not being enforced? Why would we have children of about 10 million out of school? How are we having the challenges we're having in the first place? Because if we understand how important education is in this country and the fact that we must build a human capital in order to be able to empower and to ensure we harness our resources, that will not take this lightly. So that's a million dollar question. How did we get here and what are we going to do about it? Because I think we're just talking about it. We're talking about it. We've been talking about it forever. We see that 10 million, it's 30 million. What are we going to do about it? We need to crack those terrible malaise that is plaguing this nation of the fact that our children are out of school, our children are being kidnapped, our children are not, they're the most important, they're the most important to us. That's the future of Nigeria. So as far as we're concerned, something has to happen and it has to happen fast. Ikeiji, just picking up from where she just dropped it. This is the future of this country. And if we have millions of them out of school, we're still having to deal with the fact that we haven't even scratched the surface of our MDG goals for the United Nations in terms of education, we're still having to grapple with that. Now, how do you even convince a parent to let their child go to school when it's literally not even safe to be in one? The bigger challenge to me is lack of internationality in almost anything that we do as a nation. Nigeria seems to be a nation that is driven very critically by happenstance and that's where the bigger challenge is for me because it's like insecurity just happens. It's like the out of school concern just happens. So a lot of parents give back to children without a plan, without a future but it has become kind of like a thing in Nigeria. So we're bringing a nation of children who are out of school not because they ought to be out of school but because the parents don't even plan for them. So you have some state governments in the least that have come up with free education but even where education is free, how well enforced is it that children within the school age, lifestyle, seasons will need to go to school if not really enforced. So even where some states, I know back in the day like Yriva State, they made it compulsory and there were law enforcement agents going about trying to insist that children should be sent to school but some of these children were no longer living with their parents, they were living with nannies, they were living with uncles, with aunties and these ones will subject them to child labour. So the bigger challenge to me is that some of the parents have not even embraced the need for schooling for these school age children because they really don't see the case for education. So before you even talk about insecurity, before you talk about other concerns, they feel these children should come help them out in the farms, they feel these children should help them sell goods and wares on the streets, these children should engage in another kind of schooling like in the East. Okay, they have a different kind of schooling arrangement where some school age children are required to go help some uncle in his shops, in electronic shops, in his bookstore and all that. It's another kind of empowerment but it's not the formal kind of education that we're looking at. So when from the family front, education is not embraced as the real deal and then government seems to be a little casual about their dealings, not just on education but in every other area. But it becomes a big challenge to say, I as a parent must get my child to school. So it becomes like, okay, I am serious, I am intentional about getting my children to school, but what about you? What about the other man out there? It's not something we are doing as a national concern. We're not even calculating the impact of all of this in the next couple of years. Let's look at the future where these children should be the leaders of Nigeria and then they are now mostly illiterate or in some cases drop out from school. Then you ask the question which way Nigeria, it becomes really scary for our future. Mrs Simay, interesting point that Ikechi has made. Every single month our governments are budgeting and let's not just talk about the federal government, states are involved. For example, I'm going to talk about river states. So a governor of the UK is building flyovers. I mean, he's called Mr Projects for a reason. But how many schools, how many classrooms project has he had in the space of how many years that he's been governor? This is his second tenure. How many schools has he renovated? How many classrooms has he built? No, we haven't seen that, it's not replicated in the education sector but we see more roads and all of those flyovers in river states and this is not an attack on the governor. But this is detailed for every other governor who seems to be commissioning these wide elephant projects. But then the most important thing which they all benefited from by the way is being somewhat set aside or tossed aside. So how do educationists like you and Ikechi push for these mega portions for education budgeting to be increased? Because whether we like it or not, it might not necessarily look nice for them in their blueprint or when they're doing a scorecard for themselves. But how can we push for this to become a big priority for all our politicians because whether we like it or not, there is some politics to it? Absolutely. I mean, I just read that the education budget, the federal one was just about 6.3 and it's about 742 billion out of about say 11 trillion or so was earmarked to education this year. That is extremely low. So it just tells you that the government is not paying attention to education at all. This is the time when we are saying that we have a lot of out-of-school. This is the time when we have insurgency issues. This is the time when COVID has caused a lot of loss of learning. If you see the kind of money that has been put towards COVID in every other country, a lot of schools have been shot down for a greater part of last year. A lot of public schools are still doing staggered lessons. So you just wonder what our government is looking at. And like Ikechi said, if they understand the importance of the human capital, the importance of the young people they are bringing up, they are going to actually build the economy. Because you have all these resources in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the most resource nations in the world. The human capital is the most important. In countries like Singapore that they don't have natural resources, they invest so much in the human capital. And that's what we should do. Nigeria, God has blessed us in this country, not only with human resources but with natural resources. So what happens is you just wonder why state governments, in Lagos state though, Lagos state is building, despite the fact that Lagos state is not a big, we don't have land in Lagos state, but the governor is actually building infrastructure and improving the state of schools. He's focusing because Lagos state is cosmopolitan. This is a state that needs very cerebral human capital. We need people who know what they're doing. So he understands that his economy is built on the human capital and the way he educates his young people. And he's focusing on that. And I do believe that some other states are doing that as well. In fact, there has been evidence that has shown that, although the Northwest has about, I think has about 5.2 million out of school, but certain states have put a lot of money in education, I think like Shokutou during Governor Thambu well at that time, and the insurgency went down. You know, when you don't put money in education, you'll find that crime rate is going to go up, because the young people are going to, they don't have jobs, they don't have skills, they don't have a vocation. So what are they going to do? So they're ripe for ripping by Boko Haram and all the insurgencies because they don't have anything. So we won't connect the dots in Nigeria. If we don't educate our children, then we are opening them up to be recruited for different types of crime. See what kidnapping is doing. If we educate them, they will have a vocation, they will have a job, and they will get involved. So it doesn't take anything so smart to figure that out. So that's why we always wonder why we are not doing this. China has a massive human capital. Every other country is going to China to set up their manufacturing units and they are using the human capital and they are paying dollars. Nigeria is massive. We are 200 million now. By 250, we are going to be 400 million. Third largest country in the world. In the world. What are we going to do then? If we don't stop it up now, what are we going to do? It's only 10 million out of school. That's the billion dollar question. Ikeijin closing, just as she said, and I'm going to ask you now again, politics is the order of the day, as we speak right now, there are campaigns. The president was in the emo state. He's going there because of course he went to inspect a project and commissioned it. And it's all political. Politics is the order of the day. 2023 is in view. And all the movements we're seeing in the different political parties is of course targeted at 2023. While these politicians are moving, what are your people, people like you doing to plug in and so that our children can benefit from it? I'll tell you what quickly. One of the things that was said, or pointed to as a result of what has led to the banditry, these young men who are in, I had a conversation with Sheikh Gumi and he said that these people have not had access to education. They do not have jobs. And I don't mind, of course, the devil's workshop. And therefore we're having a multiplication of these bandits every single day. If we do plug into education, and give at least a certain amount or chunk of our budget to it, can we say that maybe our children will now be safer in schools because these bandits would have depleted in their numbers because they have something to do? Yeah, obviously. I don't even like the open-ended statement that more increased budget is allotted to education. I think it should be specific. Budget for infrastructure or budget for facilities or budget for textbooks or budget for security. You see, education is broad-based. But you know how attractive have we made education become. You need to cover that with politics, with growing interest in politics. We seem to downplay the need for education. I mean, we talk about absolute strikes and all that. So it seems like those who have invested their lives in the details, they require details for learning and schooling and not high up there. The best education needs can become in Nigeria. It's probably at the minister or a commissioner. So he's not given that place. How rich are the teachers? How rich are the professors? Okay, so their salaries are not even promptly paid. They are not given money for research. What is the budget for research like? And all of that. So these are many questions begging for answers. And then, at the other end, you want to make the young child who's not even primarily interested in education to go to school. He has seen the neighbor out there next door who's not doing very well, simply because he's educated. He's a professor versus the politician who's riding all the big cars and all that. So you realize that in Nigeria to start with, by the kind of politics that we play, education is grossly downplayed upon. Education is trampled on that foot. Education is not what the nominal child should aspire towards. If you're looking at money, you're looking at living a very large lifestyle. So you realize that a lot of children who even dropped out of the university are probably doing well in entertainment. They are doing well in comedy. They are doing well in other things. Here we have entertainers who even have their doctorate now. I could call names of those who have gone on to get their doctorate. But in politics, you realize that you would see a professor who seems like an errand boy to a politician who's not even properly schooled. So what is the incentive for learning? Why should I go to school? Why should I advance my educational course? If education needs that push in my life. So politics should be careful so as not to kill education and the interest for education using politics. It's becoming a big bite in Nigeria and it's something we really really need to fix as we plan towards the next season of our election. Well, Ikechi Wogo is an education consultant and Bola Giosime is the co-founder, trustee education and innovation team. Thank you so much for having this conversation with us. Thank you so much, Ikeido. All right. Well on that note, we'll take a short break to see what Nigerians have to say about government's efforts in ending school kidnappings. And when we come back, I'll be saying goodbye. I don't know. We get a problem for this Nigeria but in that regard, I just feel like the first thing is to look at where the problem lies. See if the problem lies with a particular bunch or a particular people that need to be exterminated, they need to be removed. And maybe from there there can be some progress because these are our children. These are our children, these are my sisters, these are my brothers and we're all one in this country. So it doesn't matter where it's north, south. We're all the same. We need to find a solution. Whoever's causing this from there needs to be removed. The first thing for them to do is let them have, first of all, sympathy. That's sympathy on the children, the parents of those children. If they put it before them, let's assume this is actually happening to their children. What will they do? What will they do if it's their own children? Let them do it to these ones too. Because these are parents dying in pain. It's painful. The government, at least you know the right thing to do because those guys that are doing the attack over there are not terrorists. Forget the name, the attacks like bandits or no government and the rest. Those guys are terrorists and we know the right punishment for terrorists. They are not to be pardoned. They are to be tried in the court and they are to be jailed. Let us start from the security first. So we need more the government should try their possible best to make sure, at least we need more securities. That one is the most important thing because they have been long. They never recruit police. So they are also the same thing. So if we have more policemen and yes, personnel at least we can be able to overcome the... Well that's the show for tonight. Hopefully we'll be back tomorrow at the same time 7pm on Plus TV Africa as we discussed the politics of Nigeria and maybe Africa. I am Mary Annacol. See you tomorrow.