In my area and the majority parts of Nigeria, infrastructural development has been a major challenge. The infrastructural deficit is so great that I can't satisfactorily write about it in a post.
The government is intervening, but the interventions are not enough. The suffering of the people is mostly caused by a lack of infrastructure. It distributes poverty among the populace. A farmer without a good road to take out his farm produce may experience waste. The lack of easy access to hospitals has led many people to their graves. The list of the bad consequences of unavailable or inefficient infrastructure continues. This is the reason the government is trying to develop infrastructure as the major part of its capital expenditures. However, the government can do more so that the lives of the people can be improved.
Among these lacking infrastructures, the one that is most pressing to my immediate community presently is a good elementary school. For a community to grow, the role of education can't be overemphasized. Education builds the nation, and for any nation, state, or community to get it right, there is a need to prioritize education, especially primary or elementary education.
When I was growing up, the standard of public primary education was better than what we have now. I was also informed that the standard had dropped before my time. The reason for this is the neglect of continuous investment in public primary education by the government. Unfortunately, the situation is deteriorating by the day. What we have now is a near-dead public primary education system.
The population is growing, and new public primary schools are not being put in place to cater for the population growth. People now turn to privately owned schools to educate their children.
In my community, the nearest public primary school is more than two kilometers away. The capacity of the school can't contain all the children of school age, if at all they can all find their way to the school. However, it's practically impossible for all the children of school age to find their way to the school that is kilometers away from their homes. The majority of the people are lower-level income earners. They neither have personal cars nor have the means to patronize public transport on a daily basis.
In the situation whereby the parents sacrifice to the best of their abilities to enroll their children at the far distant schools, they do that for only their boy children. The girl child who is seen as a potential bride to be taken to another home is not deemed fit to be enrolled in school. This has far-reaching consequences. For society to improve economically and in other areas, education is a great tool required to push for revolutionary change.
While there are many private primary schools around, some within stone's throw of some residential areas, only a few people can afford to pay the fees for their children or wards. This has kept many children out of school, and it's definitely not good for the future.
Building public schools that can serve this out-of-school population is a need that is dire to the people of my community. Having a public school around will make education cheaper and easily accessible to the people. It is the infrastructure that I look forward to seeing the government put in place.
Access to elementary education should be the right of every child, and I want to see it happen.
The pictures used are mine.