Enrolling Out-of-School Children, Bane Of Nigeria's Education Policy – Adeosun
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun says the government is making effort to ensure that the 10 million out-of-school children are enrolled.Adeosun said this on Tuesday in Abuja, at the launch of the World Bank's World Development Report 2018, with the theme: "Learning to Realise Education's Promise.''
She highlighted some of the strategies undertaken by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in improving the education system.
"Education remains critical for global development and human welfare in every society, especially for Africa and specifically for Nigeria.''
According to this report, the quality of basic education remains low in a number of countries including Nigeria.
"Therefore, it is imperative to prepare our children and our youth to quality education that is appropriate to their current age to prepare them for the future.
"In view of this, the Nigerian government has put in place a number of interventions to fix the foundation of basic education and that is why we introduced the school feeding programme.
"We also have the N-Power Scheme which has 20,000 unemployed graduates going back to schools to teach basic literacy. It also opens our graduates to the possibility of teaching as a profession.
"Furthermore, the Ministries of Finance and Education have secured a World Bank 611 million dollars Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) credit to bring out-of-school children into the classroom,'' she said.
Adeosun called for the aligning of all actors in the education sector to unlock the potential of the education system in the country.
According to him, there are too many actors in the education sector, even from a financing perspective. We have education players at Federal Government, state and local government levels.
"We also have education being provided by the private sector.
"Apart from that, we also have too many agencies. There
"When we do that, the next question will be what value are we getting for money spent, what value are all these investments bringing in terms of learning outcome.''
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Mr Adamu Adamu said the country's education policy was currently under review to effectively have an impact on students.
He said that his ministry with assistance from World Bank had successfully designed a roadmap for the education sector tagged "Education for Change.''
"We in Nigeria believe that no nation can achieve economic, social, political and cultural prosperity without a sound, functional and responsive education system,'' he said.
Also speaking, the World Bank Nigeria Country Director, Mr Rachid Benmessaoud, reiterated the World Bank's support for Nigeria in improving its education system.
"The launch of the report in Nigeria speaks on the importance the world bank places in assisting the Nigerian government in its effort to build the country's human capacity,'' he said.
The World Development Report 2018 brings to the spotlight reasons why learning does not take place in schools.
According to the report, globally, 125 million children are not acquiring functional literacy.
In Africa, millions complete primary education without learning how to read or write or acquiring the basic competence needed for further learning.
The report attributed the factors responsible for the learning problems to include that children do not arrive schools ready to learn, teachers often lack the needed skills and motivation to teach.
Also, effective school Management is missing, while school inputs or equipment remained insufficient.
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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