By Joseph Erunke
THE United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has said achieving basic learning outcomes at the foundational level of education was key if the learning crisis in Nigeria must be addressed.
The global humanitarian and developmental aid agency, quoting the World Bank, noted that Nigeria was “experiencing a learning poverty in which 70 percent of 10-year-olds cannot understand a simple sentence or perform basic numeracy task “
“It is clear that to improve learning outcomes in Nigeria, achieving basic foundational skills at that level of learning cannot be overemphasized,” said Elhadji Issakha Diop, Officer-in-Charge (OIC), UNICEF Field Office Kano, in a welcome remark on behalf of Rahama R. Mohammed Farah, Chief of Field Office, at a Media Dialogue on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN), Friday, in Kano.
The organisation which said education was one of the fundamental human rights of children, and “well-articulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, regretted that, “For instance, as is the case with some countries globally, and in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria faces a learning crisis in which learning is not taking place, even for children that are in school.”
“According to the World Bank, Nigeria is experiencing a learning poverty in which 70 percent of 10-year-olds cannot understand a simple sentence or perform basic numeracy task.,”UNICEF said.
Açcording to it, “To address the challenge, achieving basic learning outcomes at the foundational level of education is key. It is clear that to improve learning outcomes in Nigeria, achieving basic foundational skills at that level of learning cannot be overemphasized.”
Noting that,”UNICEF is already supporting the Government of Nigeria to improve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy through tailor-made, teaching-learning practices, such as Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) and Reading and Numeracy Activities (RANA),” UNICEF said, “a lot still needs to be done to scale-up Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in Nigeria.”
To this end, the agency at the event it organised in partnership with the Child Rights Information Bureau, CRIB, of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, said “The support of every ally and stakeholder is needed – especially that of a powerful institution and ally like the media.”
While noting that,” That is why this Media Dialogue is not only apt, but timely and important”, the organisation said, “The media must deploy its powerful mass-mediated channels of communication to raise awareness of the learning crisis in Nigeria; advocate increased funding to the education sector, especially the allocation of adequate resources to the pre-primary and primary level of education in Nigeria; and investing in improving teacher quality.”
” I urge the media to mobilize all stakeholders – parents, teachers, communities, government, CSOs, donors, everyone – to join in the worthy cause of addressing the challenge of learning poverty in Nigeria,”Mr Diop said.
He said,”In executing its mandate of promoting, protecting, advocating, and collaborating with partners for the realisation of the rights of children, UNICEF has been collaborating with the Government of Nigeria to improve outcomes in the education sector.
Progress is being made; yet much more needs to be done, hence this dialogue,”he said.
Earlier, while explaining the objectives of the meeting,UNICEF Communication Specialist, Geoffrey Njoku, said the essence was to create awarenesses on reviving the nation’s education sector at the basic level.
Açcording to him, there was the need for the nation’s curriculum at the basic education level to be moderated to enhance the learning skills of school children.
Njoku, who also harped on the need for the training of teachers in the country, said the success of Sustainable Development Goals,SDG cannot be achieved without due attention on the childrens rights.
In a paper titled,”Foundation Literacy and Numeracy”,presented at the media dialogue, UNICEF Education Specialist,Manar Ahmed, emphasised on the need for children at age ten not only to be able to read sentences but also to comprehend what she called “simple arithmetic.”
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