The Government of Nigeria says it is ready to internalise the focus of the global education summit by placing education on the top of the agenda of political leaders in the country.
David Adejo, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, stated this at the 2nd Nigeria National Consultation of the Transforming Education Summit (TES) in Abuja.
Adejo said that the Federal Government was interested in applying the summit’s target to transform the country’s educational sector.
“If we spend more money on education, we will be meeting the global requirements in education,” he said.
“We must see that we recover fully from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shown us the opportunity for improving education.”
“We also need to address educational exclusion, safety and health issues by focusing on girl-child education, out-of-school children and learners with disabilities.”
“We must create an enabling environment for technical education. The country must start balancing technical education to what we are doing.”
“That is why the government is encouraging institutions to balance what the industry needs with what is being produced from the universities,” he said.
Adejo also that the government was prioritising the teaching profession through increased teaching age for teachers and bursary awards for their children.
He promised that the bursary awards for children of teachers would commence in 2023.
“When we were growing, the most important person in our communities were the teachers, but it is not so today.”
“We must therefore transform the teaching profession so that we can have more teachers interested in the profession,” he said.
The Permanent Secretary, however, called for private education financing as public financing could never be sustainable.
While speaking on the overview of TES, Chris Maiyaki, the Deputy Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), said the summit would renew the global commitment to education.
Maiyaki said it would also help build on the huge gains recorded from Nigeria’s active and notable participation at the pre-Summit, held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
According to him, the second national consultation seeks to broaden consultation, enrich and harmonise our national statement, and get an update on Nigeria’s co-leadership role with Romania.
“It is envisaged that we would have developed a common vision, renewed commitment and re-aligned actions at the end of this consultation, enough to put our weight behind the global effort to transform education between now and 2030.
“It is also necessary to focus on the much-needed policy, planning and budgetary changes necessary to recover learning losses, get SDG4 back on track and re-imagine education into the future,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mattias Schmale, the UN Resident Coordinator in Nigeria, said that the summit was a key initiative to transforming education to achieve accelerated progress and inclusive lifelong education.
Schmale, represented by Mamadou Lamine- Sow, the UNESCO Regional Education Advisor, said there was a need to ensure children were safe in school and to make education affordable.
He said that educational transformation would only happen if teachers were professionalised, trained, motivated and supported to drive the process of guiding the learners to reach their objectives.
Schmale called on decision-makers to prioritise the cost of learning and provide teachers and education personnel with good working conditions for professionally qualified teaching.
Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, said, commended global partners for their commitment to the development of education in the country.
Adamu, represented by the Minister of State for Education, Hon. Goodluck Opiah said the Federal Government would consolidate the synergy to move the country’s education sector forward.
