Walking on the streets and in our interactions with people daily, we see many out of school children, some seated at home not even knowing when their next meal is coming from talk more of a chance to go back to school. Others have already been engaged in menial jobs to contribute to fending for their families, some have even been given out to others as domestic helps with the desire that they would be taken care of and perhaps considered to be sent to school asides used as aids and many other children are at the verge of dropping out to join the already long queue of out of school children
Leaving these children to grow by themselves, in this state is obviously going to contribute to our country but you might want to ask, in what way? Definitely, negatively whose effect we may see now evidently but on the long run, we might not be able to contain it if the issue is still left unattended to.
We have discovered that most of the children out of the four walls of a classroom do not even have a chance to get informal training or learn a trade because of the same singular and major reason they dropped out of school; financial challenges of their family which is no fault of theirs. Therefore they are left to grow without any form of education at all. They remain idle, their minds are left bare, inactive and not engaged productively but open to absorb all sort of things which most times are negative, their minds grow to work against them instead of work for them.
We have met parents who desire to see their children educated and have a better life than they have now or even dream to achieve anytime soon. They have tasted the consequences that being uneducated has brought them and they would not want to fold their arms and watch their children go in the same line but most times, their lack of education has also put them in an handicapped position to help their children and these children will tow in their line if not helped immediately.
In a nutshell, at family level, this out of school children situation is doing a lot of harm and it is worse off at national level, as the number of out of school children increase and develop into adults and leaders that are supposed to take charge of the society, the literacy level will continue to drop and as this happens, we have less adults able to contribute positively to their families and their society and unable to pass on any form of help or education to their children or the society.The few individuals that might have acquired a certain level of education cannot effect the necessary positive change because there are many others who consciously or unconsciously are fighting this change due to ignorance or illiteracy. Therefore, with the imbalance in the ratio of decreased number of individuals literate enough and able to bring about development in the society and increased number of those whose energy and minds have been conditioned to barely survive,Nigeria continues in its struggle for development.
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