A report found at the link https://www.legit.ng/1215819-problems-adult-education-nigeria.html brings us information about problems of education in Nigeria. According to it, Adult Education has increased all over the world and the world does not stay stagnant; it keeps evolving and changing and, if possible, nobody should be forgotten. In Nigeria, adult education has various features that differ from the education of children and young people, the features are very similar to ours, here in Brazil. These are:

1.“The student in adulthood has a different attitude toward learning.” In Nigeria, Adult Education is associated firstly with the immediate need for knowledge. In Brazil, that is not different. The adult who comes back to school has also a different attitude toward the process of learning.

• These people have difficulties about school because, once in the past, they were excluded for many different reasons;
• They anxiously want to learn how to read and write.

2. “Poor motivation, fear of being misunderstood and showing incompetence.” For people who left the status of student many years ago, usually it is more difficult to return to school and try again, to deal with the tasks and exams. People worry about being seen as not very smart and looking like children who did not prepare homework. There is a belief that the adult student can be independent about the process of learning considering the level of motivation of these students, but actually, things are a bit different. In Brazil we also have this problem, the students have this belief about them and the teachers have difficult to motivate them.

3. “Problems with sight, memory and hearing.” There is a belief that in older age, people’s ability to memorize deteriorates, that would make the achievement of new knowledge a problem, but, besides that, it is not impossible to learn and obtain knowledge even at an advanced age. When we start to get old, our brain does not assimilate information so effectively as when we were young, but scientists have proved that adults’ natural ability to learn is not subordinated to significant changes. People who are engaged with mental work have a memory capacity that can last a long time.

4.“Truanting.” While in traditional education, the teacher has the function of controlling and examining, in adult education it is better to trust in self-control having, in parallel, the teacher’s support. Adult students frequently put their personal business above school and education and sometimes are absent from classes because they have to deal with home, children, husband or wife, work and other difficulties that we also have here in Brazil.

5.“Shortage of teaching staff and poor teacher training.” As in Brazil, in Nigeria teacher availability in conditions to teach in adult education (adequate training) is also a problem. Many reports reveal a lack of teaching staff for adult education. Here in Brazil there are few training courses for teachers specialized in adult education and it seems that adult education is not attractive.

Some other problems of adult education in Nigeria are:

• Budge problems and the inability of the state to finance educational institutions designed for the education of young people and adults.
• Problems with teachers’ salaries.
• The action of disregarding the problems of adult education.
• The difficulty in reaching rural areas.

We are two different countries, located in different regions of the world, in different continents but at least in adult education, we have many similar problems, difficulties and challenges.

By: Luísa Carolina de Sousa e Herculano