Education
FG Urged to Empower Traditional, Religious Leaders to Retain Girls in School – Group
Dr Mairo Mandara, African Lead, Keeping Girls in School, Africa initiative (KGIS) has called on the Federal Government to give traditional and religious leaders central role in ensuring every child attends school.
Mandara was speaking at a dissemination meeting with the theme: “African Traditional and Religious Leaders Taking the Lead in Keeping Girls in School’’ on Monday in Abuja.
She said that giving the traditional and religious leaders this key role would translate into ensuring rigorous enlightenment within their communities that would ensure girl-child complete schooling.
According to her, religious and traditional leaders are capable of disseminating the message and the desired change needed to transform the country.
She described the initiative, KGIS as a two-year scheme introduced in Nigeria and Ethiopia, to make traditional and religious leaders champions for retaining girls in schools.
“What has resulted in the two years pilot of KGIS in Nigeria and Ethiopia is that we have been able to inculcate over 800 traditional leaders and religious leaders to be champions for keeping girls in school.
“Before, we used to say that our culture and religion do not encourage education, what we found out is that this is not true, but our approach to doing things.
“What we have also achieved is ensuring traditional leaders take the lead in advocating and ensuring girls complete at least secondary school.
“When these religious and traditional leaders talk to parents who do not go to school, they actually listen to them and so, they put their children in school,’’ she said.
Mandara said that getting the girl-child in school and ensuring they completed their secondary education would go a long way in addressing poverty, maternal and child mortality, increase family health and income.
“We need to ensure that traditional and religious leaders are given central role in monitoring schools, in ensuring every child goes to school and in ensuring every teacher goes to school.
“Because the data that we have seen shows that when girls complete secondary school, it will reduce maternal and child mortality, increase family health and also increase family income,’’ she added.
The Emir of Zamfara, Alhaji Attahiru Mohammad, said that the state had also engaged in advocacy, sensitisation and enlightenment programmes to have girls in school.
“During the advocacy, we have made it clear to parents that this is beyond the government and a lot of them are doing well by providing what they require concerning education.
“For the poor families who could not sponsor the education of their child, we have the Emirate Foundation where we raise appeal fund to help them,’’ he said.
In the same vein, Dr Saadhna Panday-Soobrayar, the Chief Education, UNICEF Nigeria, said investment in girls’ education, in particular secondary education, would dramatically increase the lifetime earnings of girls.
She said that this would also reduce early child marriage, child mortality rate and child stunting.
“In my home country, South Africa, we demonstrated that simply keeping girls in secondary school (with no other intervention), was enough to protect girls from early pregnancy and HIV.’’
Panday-Soobrayar said that Nigeria had advanced in closing the gender gap in education, but significant regional disparities that remained was in enrolment, retention, and transition rates for girls.
“One in two girls do not transit to junior secondary school and in rural areas. For every 25 boys, who complete junior secondary school, only nine girls do so.
“This is fuelled by a complex interplay of factors including high rates of poverty, safety and security concerns, gender biases and social norms and traditions.
“There is no magic bullet to solve girls’ access to quality education. It needs sustained, comprehensive, multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder initiatives that are delivered with speed, scale, and quality.
“ While government attends to improving the supply of quality education, provision must be matched with demand for high quality education,’’ she said. (NAN)
The Federal Government has re-established a seven-member renegotiation committee to address the 2009 agreements with university-based unions.Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, at the committee’s inauguration in Abuja on Monday, gave them a three-month deadline to conclude negotiations.
The committee brings together representatives from the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU). Others are Non-Academic Staff of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).Mamman stated that President Bola Tinubu’s government aimed to improve the education system and maintain peace on campuses.He noted that renegotiations began in 2017 but were delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.He said that the previous committee, led by Prof. Nimi Briggs, produced a draft report covering significant areas.The minister urged the reconstituted committee to work diligently and produce realistic agreements addressing the challenges facing the Nigerian University System (NUS).Committee Chairman, Dr Yayale Ahmed, appealed to the government to support universities in achieving global competitiveness and to consider lecturers’ salaries as investments.ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, thanked the government and expressed hope that the new committee would succeed where previous ones failed.He emphasised the unions’ readiness to renegotiate, provided the government worked towards a stable academic calendar.(NAN)
The Federal Ministry of Education has announced that the new curriculum for basic education will commence across schools in Jan. 2025.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman disclosed this on Monday in Abuja, at a stakeholders meeting on the implementation of the new curriculum.
Mamman said new curriculum for senior secondary education would also commence by Sept.
2025.He said the new curriculum would address problems of learning crises and employability.
According to him, the new skills acquisition to be introduced would have multiplier effect by equipping students with 21st century skills.
“In the last one year, we have worked with stakeholders to develop a skills framework that will inject skills right from the latter part of basic education to secondary education.
“The whole idea is that, by the time children finished, they should have a minimum of two skills so that they can have a productive life,’’ he said.
The Minister said the meeting was conveyed to discuss the modality and as well tidy some aspects of the curriculum, while also giving timeline for implementation, support, monitoring and evaluation.
He said the next three months would be used for preparatory stage. including preparing teachers guide in using the curriculum.
When asked on the difference between the new scheme and the 6:3:3:4 system of education that also infused skills, he said the problem was the inability to implement the policy.
“The major justification for what we have done has been the inability to implement the 6:3:3:4 system from inception
“The minimum academic standard of 1993 shows a reason for 6:3:3:4 and the Act outlined clearly the learning trajectory of schools in Nigeria.
“It was envisaged that by the time learners finished basic education, they would have acquired skills. Unfortunately, we departed from it,’’ he said.
The Director of Curriculum, Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Dr Garba Gandu, said the new curriculum would provide prerequisite skills and training for global competitiveness.
Gandu said the curriculum is competency and digital based, as it also aligned with Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and (STEAM) methods.
The new curriculum includes 15 newly introduced trade subjects for basic education.
The subjects are, basic digital literacy such as information technology, vocational entrepreneurship skills such as building and construction, plumbing and tiling.
Others are hospitality such as hair styling, make-up and services such as construction, GSM repairs, satellite and CCTV installation and maintenance and garment making, among others. (NAN)
The Zamfara Teachers Service Board said the recent disengagement of the 109 contract teachers by the state government was not based on ethnic, tribal or religious reasons.
The Chairman of board, Alhaji Muhammad Aliyu-Anka, stated this while speaking to newsmen in Gusau on Friday.
The state government recently announced the dismissal of 109 contracted teachers over failure to abide by the government contract policy.
“You know, the disengagement of the teachers was not on ethnic, religious or tribal reasons, it was for the interest of the state.
“You know Gov. Dauda Lawal declared a state of emergency on the education sector of the state.
“The state government embarked on massive infrastructural investment on education across the state,” Aliyu-Anka said
He said that the provision of qualified and regular teachers was necessary to achieve the government’s policy.
He said that some of the teachers had abandoned their contracts and they were teaching at private schools while still collecting salaries from the government.
Aliyu-Anka said, “The board recommended the termination of the contracts of teachers who did not abide by the rules and regulations of the state.
“Many of the disengaged teachers were not attending schools to teach, leaving volunteers to teach the pupils.”
The chairman stated that the volunteer teachers were more qualified and they were not receiving salaries from the state government.
He said,”Considering the roles played by the volunteers in our schools, the state government plans to recruit 2000 teachers to fill the gaps by the disengaged teachers.” (NAN)
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