…urges presidential candidates to make investments in education top priority in manifestos
Segun Babatunde, Bauchi
The United Nations Children’s Fund has declared that 75 per cent of Nigerian children aged seven to 14 years cannot read a simple sentence or solve a basic mathematics problem.
UNICEF therefore said that “for children to be able to read to learn, they must be able to learn to read in the first three years of schooling”.
Ms Cristian Munduate, UNICEF Nigeria Representative, stated this in a statement to mark this year’s International Day of Education with the theme, “Invest in Education, Invest in Nigerian Children,” made available to journalists on Tuesday.
According to her, ” I commit UNICEF’s support, the government of Nigeria’s commitment to transform education and to prevent the loss of hard-fought gains in getting children into school, particularly poor, rural children and girls and ensuring that they remain in school, complete their education and achieve their full potential” .
The UNICEF Nigeria Representative added that “UNICEF, together with partners, will continue to support federal and state governments to reduce the number of out-of-school children by providing safe, secure and violence free learning environments both in formal and non-formal settings, engaging communities on the importance of education and providing cash transfers to households and to schools”.
The statement also explained that “UNICEF, together with partners, will continue to support federal and state governments to Improve learning outcomes by expanding access to quality early childhood education, scaling foundational literacy and numeracy programmes, and offering digital skills and (https://nigeria.learningpassport.org/), life and employability skills to adolescents to enable the school to work transition”.
“Increase domestic spending on education to meet the 20% global benchmark by 2030 and to address the infrastructure and teaching backlog that are affecting all children’s access to inclusive and quality education”.
The statement further stated that “As Nigeria’s presidential elections draw near, on behalf of UNICEF and the children in Nigeria, I call on all presidential candidates to include investments in education as a top priority in their manifestos”.