I welcome you to my blog. Trust me when I say Nigeria is one of the few countries still battling with a high rate of illiteracy for so many reasons; for some, they believe education should be gender-based, while a particular gender attends school and frees themselves from the shackles of illiteracy, and the other gender wallows in it. It is funny how in this 21st century some religions and even individuals still believe that a woman's place is in the kitchen and for that reason should be deprived access to western education, and they did not just end at saying it; they are giving their all to fight against it.
Countries that have seen the light and have realized how important it is that the number of illiterates within the country is reduced to the barest minimum—when you look at countries like that, you'd see how much progress they have made, whereas in some countries where they want to drive women's access to Western education, the little progress they have made is being burnt down to the ground in order to make their point clear and to bend both the government and the people to their will. Education, even if it is just high school, is good; that way we get to experience a little progress too, like other countries that have gone way ahead of us.
I must commend the Akwa Ibom state governor who made basic education free; your tuition fee from primary to high school is catered for, and all you need to do is go to school and learn. He did not stop at making education cheap and easily accessible for the people; he made it compulsory and mandatory that every child attend school and get basic knowledge. I visited the state a few months ago, and it felt like the state had gone ahead of the country. The state was neat, and the infrastructure in the state was actually second to none.
Almost everyone knew how to behave, all acting right; as a Nigerian, I have really never seen anyone make use of the waste bins placed by the roadsides, but in this state I saw a lot of people use them, and I was shocked. Literacy does not only help you gain knowledge but can also help expose you to things that an illiterate will never understand.
Illiteracy is a disease, and if you let it, it will lead you astray, and before you realize it, it will have ruined you or must have left a scar you will have to deal with all your life. Any country that really wants things to turn around must make education accessible to all; if they cannot make it completely free, then it should be cheap such that everyone one can comfortably afford it.
