By Alaba-Olusola Oke
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Federal Ministry of Education would develop guidelines on policy to enable out of school adolescent girls to return to schools.
Speaking at a two-day critique meeting on a draft re-entry guidelines for adolescent girls on Friday in Akure, Mr Omotomi Ayotunde, Deputy Director, Basic Education Department of the ministry, said the programme was important to the country.
Ayotunde noted that the meeting was for a national framework on ensuring that girls who had dropped out of schools probably because of pregnancy or early marriage, were re-enrolled.
“It has become paramount for the Federal Ministry of Education to collaborate with UNICEF to ensure that the programme becomes a national document. It is a brain child of UNICEF and the ministry keyed into it.
“We are here to harvest inputs of people, especially stakeholders from eight states and to have a robust and comprehensive guidelines.
“After here, we will go to other zones and after that, we will process the guidelines and submit them for actions or implementation,” he said.
In his remarks, Dr Chinedu Osuji, the resource person of the programme, explained that a draft had been produced and it was being taken round the country for stakeholders to appraise.
Osuji, who said that the initiative was a product of UNICEF and the ministry, stated that the main objective was to have a national document that would address the alarming rate of out of school girls in the country.
According to him, 60 per cent of out of school students in Nigeria are adolescent girls, so, there is need to carry all girls along in education in the country.
“The idea is that if a girl has to drop out because she gets pregnant, she should have an opportunity to return to school after having her child.
“If it is early marriage, she should be able to go back. Marriage should not be a hindrance,” he said.
Speaking to newsmen, Mrs Olaseni Ogunleye, the Permanent Secretary, Ogun Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, appreciated the Federal Government for the initiative.
Ogunleye, a participant, said the document if concluded and implemented would afford girls the opportunity to fulfil their destinies despite some problems they might encounter in their life journey.
She pleaded with government to ratify the document when concluded and make it a national policy, so that states could domesticate it.
In her words, Mrs Abidemi Adeoye, Director of Social, Mobilisation and Special Education, Osun Universal Basic Education Board, said the process was a welcome idea.
Adeoye, another participant, recalled that the Child Right Acts stipulated that no child should be kept away from school.
She noted that many girls became pregnant because they were raped or lured into it, adding that poverty made many to become pregnant out of their wish.
“We need to encourage them. If we fail to cater for them, they will become liabilities and dependency ratio will be increased in our society.
“We must sensitise their parents to bring them up and we must create the enabling environment for them, so that they will get back to schools and become useful to the society,” she said.
Rev. Father Patrick Adebayo of Ondo Catholic Diocese, said the concept if implemented would make the society better and flourishing.
Adebayo, a participant, asked concerned authorities not to allow unnecessary bureaucracy to hinder implementation of the policy when concluded. (NAN)
