Jutha Gupah, Maiduguri
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has urged Federal Government to invest in people by prioritizing transforming education at all levels.
The priority to education was in fulfillment of commitments made by President Muhammadu Buhari at the UN Secretary General transforming education Summit in September 2022.
The call was made by the UNICEF representative in Nigeria, Ms Cristian Munduate, in a statement released, yesterday (Tuesday), in Maiduguri to mark International Day of Education.
The international day themed; “Invest in people, prioritize education” was to enable children between the age of seven and 14 to read simple sentence and solve basic math problems.
She noted that 75 per cent of children in Nigeria cannot read simple sentences and solve even the basic math problems.
“For them to be able to read to learn, they must be able to learn and read in the first three years of schooling,” she noted.
Besides, she added that UNICEF’s support to Nigeria’s commitment was to prevent the loss of hard-fought gains in getting children into school, particularly poor, rural children and girls.
“They are ensured to remain in school, complete their education and achieve to their full potential,” declared the UNICEF boss.
She said the UN agency, with other partners, will continue to support the federal and state governments to reduce out-of-school children by providing safe, secure and violence free learning environment.
Munduate reiterated that the learning environment be in formal and non-formal settings and engage communities on the importance of education by providing cash transfers to households and schools.
“There should be improve learning outcomes by expanding access to quality early childhood education,” she added, as well as scaling foundational literacy and numeracy programmes with digital skill (https://nigeria.learningpassport.org/), life and employability of adolescents to enable the school to work transition.
She said that the increased domestic spending on education was to meet the 20% global benchmark by 2030.
“This is to address the infrastructure and teaching backlog that are affecting all children’s access to inclusive and quality education,” said Munduate
Speaking on the 2023 general elections, she said: “As the elections draw near, I call on all presidential candidates to include investments in education as a top priority in their manifestos.”
