The Federal Government has promised to leverage on development partners to address mirage of challenges facing education sector, especially in addressing out-of-school issues and mass literacy.
The Minister of State for Education, Dr Suwaiba Ahmad, was speaking during a working visit of the Senior Programme Manager, Global Campaign for Education (GCE), Wolfgang Leumer to the Minister in Abuja on Tuesday.
Leumer was accompanied on the visit by the leadership of Non-governmental Association of Literacy Support Services (NOGALSS).
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Ahmad explained that development partners played important roles in the advancement of education, especially at it has to do with grassroots education.
“At the ministry, what we are trying to do is to bring them (development partners) together and with the population of Nigeria and piloting this programme in six states but then we have 36 states and FCT.
“By the time you are working on one aspect, another people are working in another area in other states. And within this pilot states, it’s only working in some selected local government areas.
“So you find out that some of these monies you are pumping and looking at the overall population its something that is insignificant and that is why the impact is not being felt across the country.
“So what we are trying to do is to align development partners so we can sit down together, pool our resources together and see how government can come in.
“So that whatever initiative looking at, every state is also part of it, so that if you are working on a state, let us focus on that state and ensure that all members of that state benefit from that initiative,” she said.
For his part, Leumer said the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) was initiated for the purpose of equal education for all.
According to him, we saw the importance of digital literacy and what we have done is to bring it to communities for those left behind in education to benefit.
“GCE is working for the goal of equal education for all as a public good, there is something that is a prerequisite for development.
“SDG 4 goal is the most important of the sustainable development goals and it should not be left aside, law must be put in place and that is what we are fighting for in the advocacy space .
“The digitalisation efforts is in a number of countries now to make education more efficient, bring it up to scale and bring it up to those who have been left behind,” he said.
Meanwhile, the NOGALSS National President, Noah Emmanuel, explained that the digital literacy initiated in six states was aimed at providing basic digital training to 1,200 learners across diverse geographics.
Emmanuel called for ministry’s collaboration and support in the actualisation of the project.
” As a key stakeholder in education, your ministry’s collaboration is critical to ensuring the success of this project.
“We believe this project aligns with the federal government’s vision for inclusive and functional education, particularly in the areas of digital literacy, non-formal education, and lifelong learning.
“At NOGALSS, we are committed to absolute transparency, accountability, and diligence in the execution of this project.
“We are committed to ensuring that this project leaves a legacy of empowerment, knowledge, and inclusivity for our communities,” he said.
He added that plans were underway to graduate 43 Computer Software and Hardware Engineering students and 56 Chef students trained from two member organisations of NOGALSS.(NAN)
