By Rosemary Ogbonnaya
Minister of State for Education, Hon Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba has said
the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, through the Ministry has reduced the number of out of school children from 10.1 million in 2019 to 6.9 million in 2020.
Nwajiuba said this in commemoration of Commonwealth celebration in Abuja on Monday.
He said nnovations like Better Education Service Delivery For All, BESDA is being implemented in 17 Pilot states on three result areas: which is increasing equitable access for out-of-school children, improving literacy, and strengthening accountability for results.
Nwajiuba disclosed that the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment, AGILE, project is also on stream.
According to him, the programme design is to empower adolescent girls who are either out of school or in-school through skill acquisition, financial empowerment and inculcation of other pertinent life skills to enable them eke a living, remain and complete schooling.
The Federal government, according to Nwajiuba, also participates actively in Commonwealth activities and is represented on the board of Commonwealth of Learning,COL.
“Financial and intellectual contributions are made promptly to support activities therein on distance learning and technology-enabled learning. Thus, in collaboration with COL, the National Open University (NOUN) has expanded its! Online courses into West African sub-regions. The National Teachers Institute (NTI) is also coordinating distance learning programmes for teachers thereby increasing access. COL also strengthens the capacity of staff in tertiary institutions for optimal service delivery.
“Some enablers of the out of school children syndrome are also being addressed for sustainability. To that effect, three (3) training manuals on Nomadic education were developed by the National Commission for Nomadic Education and about one hundred (100) nomadic extension agents trained to ensure that the children of nomads combine formal learning with nomadic herding,” he said.
Another innovation, Nwajiuba said, is the advocacy to the National Association of Proprietors and School Owners in Nigeria, (NAPSON) for each private school to voluntarily sponsor at least five pupils as their corporate social responsibility and this is projected to drastically take some vulnerable children off the streets and also increase access to quality education.
He further said, ” In tandem with the Commonwealth quest for member states to provide and sustain quality education, the Ministry developed several guidance; a curriculum in basic literacy and numeracy in the three major Nigerian languages and English, code of conduct for adults and non-formal education., literacy and numeracy primers for teaching arithmetic and facilitators guide in English and the three major Nigerian Languages.
“Access to Education is also being expanded continually to achieve the Commonwealth stand on equitable unfettered provision of quality Education for all citizenry by national governments of member states,” said Nwajiuba.
The Minister said the Ministry, recently established six additional Unity Colleges, six new Federal Colleges of Education, eight Federal Polytechnics, two new Universities of technology and upgraded four existing polytechnics to Universities of Technology thereby increasing enrolment for tertiary education.
He added that plans are ongoing for the establishment of a National Institute for Technology, NIT in Abuja and two specialised universities for Health, Nutrition and Medical sciences in Azare, Bauchi State and Ila-orangun in Osun state.
“We must note that the sustainability of quality Education anchors on the availability of trained professional teachers. Consequently, a number of professional examinations namely Professional Qualifying Examinations, (PQE), Professional Qualifying Examination Integrated, (PQEI), online examination for prospective diaspora teachers, online induction of graduating students of Teacher Education Institutes evolved as strategies deployed to ensure and sustain quality teachers in the education sector,” he said.
