[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.33]this is the Education Report.
[00:04.99]Nigeria has one of the world's highest rates of people
[00:09.59]who can not read or write,
[00:11.96]but a government agency is taking steps to help
[00:16.66]more than 400,000 Nigerians in Kano state become literate.
[00:22.71]The Kano State Agency for Mass Education
[00:27.17]has set high goals for literacy.
[00:30.51]The goals may be hard to reach because the adults
[00:34.99]and young people the agency wants to teach
[00:38.45]are not attending school.
[00:41.10]Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike
[00:46.21]reported on the situation last September.
[00:49.67]The minister said, the number of illiterate Nigerian adults
[00:55.08]has increased by 10 million over the past 20 years,
[01:00.69]the current total is 35 million;
[01:04.39]the nation also has more than 10 million children
[01:08.85]who are not in school.
[01:11.56]To improve that situation, Kano's educational agency
[01:17.01]has joined with Education for All (EFA),
[01:20.28]a project of the United Nations
[01:23.28]Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
[01:28.75]Working together, they have launched more than
[01:33.65]8,074 adult literacy classes in 44 local government councils.
[01:42.21]The effort is expected to reach about 403,700 people.
[01:49.02]Success would mean a 90 percent adult literacy level by 2015.
[01:56.70]The agency says it has 16,000 facilitators
[02:02.10]to teach and train students,
[02:04.87]the aim is to extend its reach
[02:08.32]to all the 44 local government councils in the state.
[02:13.39]Kano City Women Center is one of
[02:17.04]many learning centers for young and adult women.
[02:21.19]It serves 965 students at its school
[02:25.85]and 145 more women at a vocational or occupational center.
[02:33.61]The school teaches English, mathematics, geography,
[02:39.32]biology, chemistry, economics, and other subjects.
[02:44.58]At the vocational center,
[02:47.23]women learn how to knit and sew,
[02:50.34]and make products like soaps and air fresheners.
[02:54.41]Halima Aminu is 25 years old and a mother of three children.
[03:01.16]She once left school because of a lack of financial support.
[03:06.44]She started attending the Kano City Women Center in 2010.
[03:12.81]Today, she is in her final year
[03:16.43]at the senior secondary-school level.
[03:19.54]"When I come to school in the morning I will enter my class,
[03:23.81]so when I finish learning, taking lectures
[03:28.13]then I will go back home.
[03:29.68]I have children, I will teach them
[03:33.04]and take my exercise-books to revise.
[03:36.40]So I also help them in doing their homework," said Aminu.
[03:39.80]Halima Amin hopes to continue her education at the next level
[03:44.86]and someday become a medical doctor.
[03:48.58]And that's the VOA Learning English Education Report.
[03:54.40]I'm Bob Doughty.