54% Of Nigerians Are Illiterates – Former ASUU President

Fifty four percent of Nigerians are illiterates, Prof. Oladipo Fashina, a former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) said on Monday.

Speaking at the opening of the National Education Summit with theme “Toward a System of Education for Liberation in Nigeria,” held in Abuja, Fashina noted that only 15 percent of Nigerians have magaed a higher education in the last 54 years.

“The present crisis in education is an offshoot of the neo-liberal misdirection which Nigerian people did not choose,” Fashina said.

“Our rulers still insist in the main that the solution to the crisis in education lies with flooding the country with private schools, universities and commercialised education to operate in acceptance with market rules,” he added.

“This explains why public expenditure on education has never gone anywhere near the UNESCO prescription that each country should expend at least 26 per cent of its national budget on education,” he said.

Fashina noted that for effective national development in the education sector, it must be re-conceptualised in a manner that would make it capable of performing its transformative functions for the nation at large.

The former ASUU leader said the summit would help in charting a new course for educational delivery and eventually liberate the country’s ailing education system.

“We are expected to come up with viable proposals the acceptance and execution of which will bring about a re-engineering and liberation of the education sector,” Fashina noted.

The  summit was jointly organised by Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), National Association of Academic Technologists (NAATS), Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational, Associated Institutions (NASU) and the coalition of civil societies.