AN ATTACK ON EDUCATION

It is a known fact that education plays a key role in a nation’s development. Education empowers the people, bridges the gap between the ‘low’ and the ‘high,’ education encourages gender and social class equality. Education gives the child of the poor an opportunity to sit in a class with the child of an aristocrat.

President Barack Obama answered two questions asked by a Nigerian during a town hall meeting in South Africa, on 29^th September, 2013.  The first question was on Human resource and the second on Terrorism. Obama answered the questions brilliantly well but the answer he gave to the second question changed my perception on how to fight terrorism. He said “Terrorism thrives in countries where the government has failed to deliver to its people”.  Countries where the government has failed to empower the youth, by sensitizing the people on the importance of education, not only that, but also providing for the people the opportunity to be literates.

However, education is yet to find its feet in some parts of the world; mostly in developing countries in Africa and, a part of the Middle East. Attacks by insurgents have been a major cause for the declining rate of education. October 9, 2013 makes it a year since Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban gunmen for been an apologist for women education. She is known for her activism for rights to education and for women, especially in the Swat valley, where the Taliban had banned girls from attending school.  

In Afghanistan, education is clearly not given a second thought by women. It is not an option for girls in Afghanistan. According to Government figures, only 26% of Afghanistan’s population is literate, and among women the rate is only 12%.

Attacks by insurgents who oppose women’s education lead to regular closures of girls’ schools. Moreover, 50% of schools do not have buildings and other necessities, and a dearth of textbooks, teaching materials and equipped laboratories, along with the large number of school closures or relocation directly affects the quality of education

In a similar development, twenty-nine students and a teacher were killed by armed gunmen in a boarding school couple of months ago, in Yobe State in Northeastern Nigeria. 

I believe the fight against terrorism and other social menace can only be won through the concerted effort of the citizens and the Government, and probably the intervention of foreign agencies, such as the United Nations, if need be, with a common goal of eliminating terrorism.