Ikenna Emeka Okpani
22 April 2004
The Minister of State for Education, Hajia Bintu Musa, has stated that Nigeria may not meet the goals of Education For All (EFA) unless there was improvement in gender disparity and school enrolment and in funding the EFA goals.
Addressing newsmen as part of activities marking the EFA week celebration, the Minister said the business of education was capital intensive and that one of the major challenges facing the achievement of the Education For All goals was funding.
She, however, observed that the country was undaunted especially with pledges of support from the international community to countries which are seriously committed to the actualisation of EFA goals.
Hajia Musa said there was need for greater private sector collaboration in achieving EFA goals.
According to her, despite the private sectors contribution to the Education Tax Fund which has yielded over N80 billion, there was need for the private sector to offer more in that direction.
"Government also recognises that the private sector has been holding fort in the areas of Early Childhood Care, Development and Education (ECCDE). However, baseline data of facilities in ECCDE provided by the private sector is required to enable them to ascertain the gaps. Government hopes to further collaborate with the private sector, whereby the UBE and NERDC will elaborate policy and curriculum in ECCDE," he said.
Hajia Musa said the government was committed towards ensuring that every child is given the right to free and compulsory basic education through the three education vehicles of UBE, NMEC and NCNE.
She said the government's Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme was a strong expression of government's action in the country towards achieving the goals. She observed that there was upward enrolment of pupils into primary schools.
Achievements recorded so far she said include:
· "Establishment of state EFA fora in all the 36 states of the federation and FCT to design the National Action Plan for EFA.
· The passage into law of the UBE Bill by the National Assembly to give the UBE programme the necessary legislative backing."
She said, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) has continued to develop and improve the curriculum to ensure quality in basic education. "It has also developed orthographies in 36 Nigerian languages to enable children to learn in their mother tongue as prescribed in the National Policy on Education. In addition, it has also developed curriculum of infusion of HIV/AIDS preventive education into key subjects."
Hajia Musa said the theme of the EFA week celebration, "Children missing an Education" was a clarion call to all Nigerians to rise and address the challenging issue of out-of-school children who are missing education.
The 2004 UNICEF report on the state of the world's children reveals that about 121 million children worldwide are out-of-school. 65 million of these children are girls while 56 million are boys.
The global EFA week celebration is to mark the anniversary of the world education forum where Nigeria joined over 160 countries in April 2000, in Dakar to reaffirm their commitments to deliver Education For All by 2015.
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