By Fatima Muraina

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The importance of education cannot be over emphasized. This and many more attributed to why Nigerian government decided to ensure that every child gets the desired education, to equip them for future challenges, which brought about the free education as preached by the then Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
The free Education then was intended to cover the states and all nooks and crannies of the villages where government established the Jakande schools to ensure that Nigerian children got the best education through the free Education system.
The free Education system began to fade out following the dwindling in the nation’s economy.
Thus, parents started indulging in purchasing stationery and text books for their children, and this metamorphosed to collection of stipends from them to assist in maintaining the school.
Government still struggles to foot the bills of school certificate examinations for both WAEC and the NECO until few years back when it finally handed off education completely, leaving the parents and their children to meet the challenges of getting the required education.
The free Education is no longer free and is now swept under the carpet due to the dwindling economic situation of the country which has totally collapsed, leading to recession in the world.
Many of the children have dropped out of school to learn a trade while majority of others never bothered to seek for education due to paucity of fund to get them educated.
The situation is most pathetic in the rural areas which are without birth control more so that the United State has withdrawn its assistance of providing health care facility like the family planning to control birth rate.
The children now grow without a formal education into many societal ill like; banditry, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape and many others.
The situation becomes worrisome as it brings about insecurity which has become the order of the day, such that no one sleeps with his or her two eyes closed.
In a visit to Awo Kajola village, off Ilutoro, by Ita Olorun in Idanre Local Government area, it was discovered that the population of people living the small town is over 5,000 people who are also surrounded by neighbouring villages without any source of energy generation, bad roads and other expected facilities to cater for the teeming villagers.
Only one borehole is servicing the entire community and a primary School established by the missionaries who saw the necessity of establishing the school to serve the entire villages around, running to about seven of them.
Speaking in an interview with the Proprietor of the school, Pastor Victor Oladapo urged Nigerians to contribute to the educational development of children at the remote rural communities which he referred as the ‘jungles’, to curb the incessant insurgency ravaging the society and the country as a whole.
Oladapo, who is from the GEMPAL missionary agency working in the Idanre area, said his mission established a functional primary school which he said is serving about 10 rural communities out of over 700 of such in Idanre Local Government Area alone.
“We discovered that many of them were just roaming all over the jungle and we decided on what could be done to make sure that they do not become nuisance, and many of them are not Yorubas but from different tribes in Nigeria.”
“Such situation can bring about the present situation of challenges of insurgencies and there was need to impact the community through provision of education”.
According to him, teenagers of between fourteen and seventeen years are still in primary three, four and five, and if such children lack education, there is every possibility that they could get involved in atrocities beyond Kidnapping, rape, ritual killings and terrorism like Boko Haram.
The school, Oladapo said is catering for over 100 students while many others are still in the jungle because of the challenges being faced by the school on mobility, facilities and a few others.
“Now we need a bus to convey the students, because most times we pack eight children on just a bike and I use my car to pack about 19 or 20 children from far villages which takes about 40 minutes before dropping them at their various destinations.”
He called for the urgent need to give priority attention to children where he referred to as the jungles for better and accessible education.
” We have several jungles like that whereby you can see children roaming about and becoming thugs, we only focus on the cities but the major area of challenge is in the jungle where several of them are becoming another thing entirely.”
He called on well to do Nigerians, philanthropists, politicians and individual to create an avenue to cater for these children’s education.
He said the situation is beyond the missionaries and noted that his mission has engaged some of the pupils but still faces challenges to meet their urgent needs.
“Government can come in to provide mobility for us and it can also assist to send teachers as well as provide welfare for the children,” he said with thousands of children running about the various community.