How Fountain is changing the face of education in Nigeria -Isaac Audu

COVID-19 pandemic, insurgency, terrorism and banditry resulting in destruction of education facilities, killing and kidnapping of school children and teachers have tremendously fueled the crisis in the education sector in subsahara Africa. Again,the poor number of qualified and employed teachers has left school children at the mercy of the few,some of whom are less capable to handle the surging population of children in primary and secondary schools in the subregion today.

At the moment,the region is projected to need an additional 15 million primary and secondary teachers by 2030 for the education system to recover from the COVID pandemic. How can this be achieved is the question that is in the lip of every principal actor of the region’s education recovery efforts. While many are out there tasking their brains on how this could be solved, Fountain,an education and community development initiative, through its programme, Fountain Empowerment and Development, FEED, has provided the answer. 

Apart from rewriting some hardcopy text books to simpler form to help school children read and assimilate easily, the organisation,no doubt,has come up with an innovative measures that would see few teachers impacting knowledge to hundreds of school children at a given period, through digital devices,thus saving authorities of the need to source for millions of physical teachers.

The measures encapsulated in the Fountain’s FEED programme, according to the Programme Coordinator, Isaac-Audu, has seen the conversion of written materials or hard copy texts to digital format. So far, hard copy text books in 29 subjects have made into simplified key notes.

The FEED programme is an offspring of Fountain Integrated Services, a business entity with status of a Non-Governmental Organisation, NGO,which core mandate is remodification of teaching and learning not just in Nigeria but Africa as a whole.

The development of the education materials which started in 2012,saw the launch of ten books in 2015, according to Isaac Audu.

“Our goal is to achieve the SDG goal number 4 for quality education, that is the first goal that we have. We are hopping that that would lead us to achieve goal number 10 which is to reduce inequality. When somebody is properly educated, it bridges the gap  of inequality. It may not necessarily mean the income level but the gap is reduced a bit. When inequality is reduced,it brings us back to goal number one which is to alleviate poverty. Educate them,reduce inequality and poverty is alleviated and we can’t do this without goal number 17, which is partnership. That is why we call on partners to join us so that we can do this together. 

Africa can be a better place, the narrative can change if we come together to achieve this,”he told Vanguard.

Audu spoke further on his organisation’s activities thus:”Basically, we are into education. We are also extending to community development. We started in 2012 to develop these educational materials and in 2015,we had a book launch with ten subjects. From that 2015 to now,we have published 29 books in all and we have also given back to the society through our social corporate responsibility. “

He, however,regretted that the activities of the organisation were not documented from the beginning.

 “We noticed that what we have done over the years was not being documented. We would just go out,give these materials to some NGOs and so on.So for us,we now thought of how best we can package this,structure it very well and make sure that the people who we are targeting get the best. 

That is what made us come up with the FEED. 

“The FEED programme is designed in such a way that we are taking these materials that we have prepared and are approved to the rural communities.

“Ordinarily, many of them would not be able to afford the kind of materials that we have made here,both the audiovisual and the hard copies of our books. So we designed this programme so that we will be able to take these groups to the rural communities,”he explained.

On how far the programme has gone,he said:”So far,we started with a suburb here in Abuja ,then we went to Karu in Nasarawa and we have been to two communities in Toro Local Government Area of Bauchi and then to Akamkpa in Cross River State.”

“We have been to Gembu Community of Taraba State as well. The feedback we have gotten from these communities was enormous. They are expecting us to do more. That is why we are calling on partners to join us in this campaign,to bridge the gap in education. Our motto is is to equip these children for the future-one child at a time.”

Answering question on whether he would go into collaboration with some agencies,he said:”We have written letters to various organisations but we are yet to get feedback. 

“Some have promised us that they want to have meetings with us but we don’t want to wait for them. When you have a vision and it is boiling inside you, you can’t wait for everybody to join the train before you start. That is why you see that with the little resources that we have,we have started. So when they join us,when they are ready to give us audience, we will show them what we have started,”he added.

On how the programme is adding value to the society,he explained:”There was this report that Africa needs about 15 million teachers to be able to meet up with the millennium goals by 2030. The question is that where are you going to find 15 million teachers to be able to bridge that gap? Now,if you look at the statistics of the annual budget in most Sahara Africa,its just about five percent that most government are signing for education. If you check, you will see that more than half of children in those communities are out of school. So by bringing this programme, we are adding value in the sense that we are reducing the cost,even for the government because if you have quality teachers teaching and you prepared it in a documentary form,it’s like having one teacher teaching 10,000 students at the same time. That is a lot of value you are adding to the society. While you are engaged in the audiovisual, you have materials right in front of joy that you can also take down. So we are combining the two in a very fugal innovative way to get this result.”

He spoke further:”So far,for the educational materials that we are working with, we have reached out to 20 states already. Our materials are already in 20 states as at the last count and quite a number of schools are using those materials. I’m not talking about audiovisuals here because our audiovisuals are reserved for the FEED programme. We are not putting our audiovisuals online for sale,they are specifically for the FEED programme. Over 20 schools across the country have these materials and the feedback has been tremendous.

On why the organisation was targeting only secondary schools,he said:”There is always a starting point for every idea,you don’t just carry the entire burden at once. So,right now,even among the secondary schools, we are starting with those preparing for their final year exams. So this first phase would give us the opportunity to learn and study how the programme will be most effective and beneficial to these young ones. So,as we make progress and as we see the achievements and resources of the programme, we will even take it down further to the primary schools and then up higher to the tertiary institutions.”