Educating Nigeria

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Every Nigerian child has the constitutional right to free and compulsory primary education, and free secondary education, yet there remains a huge gap between that law and the reality. One in every five of the world’s out-of-school children lives in Nigeria. In a nation with one of the world’s youngest populations, this lack of access to education could potentially cost the country its future. Its government recently acknowledged that there are 10.5 million children not being educated. It’s a complex picture which includes underfunding, a lack of skilled teachers - and an issue of safety. BBC Africa journalist Yemisi Adegoke hears from parents and students at the sharp end of this crisis and asks the difficult questions to those in power.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What are your sort of hopes for the future for you and your daughter?
0:03.0	What do you want?
0:03.8	In 10 years' time, where would you want to be?
0:06.8	I want to be a good leader to the country
0:11.2	and then to be a supporter to some people who found themselves in my situation where I am now.
0:20.5	I want to be there for them to speak out for them and therefore me. found themselves in my situation where I am now.
0:24.2	I want to be there for them to speak out for them and therefore my daughter's, I want to give her life.
0:28.4	I want her future bright.
0:31.9	This is Amina.
0:33.9	She's a single mom struggling to make ends meet,
0:36.9	but she's determined her young daughter will receive the education she lost out on.
0:43.2	I met them both last year when I was in Nigeria covering the 10th anniversary of the mass kidnapping that shocked the world.
0:50.4	Now let's go to Nigeria because a group of armed men have kidnapped more than 100 girls from a school in northeast of the country.
0:57.7	Teachers say a convoy of gunmen in trucks and motorbikes overpowered security guards at a state-run boarding school in Borno.
1:05.7	We were writing our final exams when they attacked.
1:08.8	We heard gunshots and we woke up and three men came into our room and told us not to panic.
1:15.2	We later found out that they were among the attackers.
1:18.5	Amina was one of the 276 schoolgirls abducted from their dorms in the town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria,
1:26.0	taken by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
1:29.4	She was held for over two years.
1:31.7	More than 90 of her classmates are still missing.
1:35.0	Sometimes when we meet with their parents, they don't see their children.
	...

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