Three hundred and fifty pupils have graduated from the Empowerment Support Initiative (ESI) of the wife of Rivers Governor, Mrs Judith Amaechi.

The first 350 graduates received their certificates in Port Harcourt last week at the 1st National Conference on Kindergarten Education, tagged “Kindergarten Education in 21st Century Nigeria: the ESI Approach”.

Amaechi noted that a UNICEF report shows that 4.7 million Nigerian children of school age are not in school, while over 11 million cannot read or write.

She said the statistics encouraged her to initiate the Kindergarten education programme to aid children faced with a variety of cultural survival challenges, mostly in rural areas with no access to quality education.

She said so far ESI had established Early Child/Kindergarten education centers in nine local government areas of Rivers and in more than 123 wards with a population of 3,537 pupils.

“Every child, regardless of the circumstance of their birth or the social standing of their parents, deserves a head-start in education that would enable them access the best that the present civilisation offers,” she said.

Amaechi said the biggest challenge for parents was for them to raise children, who would avoid their mistakes and fallings and insist on doing better than them in every sphere of life.

“I believe that the challenge can be better met with quality education with roots in a sound kindergarten educational foundation targeted at their formative years of life,” she said.

Rivers Deputy Governor Tele Ikuru said at the inception of the present administration in the state, the governor was shocked by the decay in the educational sector and as such declared a war on the sector to remedy the inadequacies.

Ikuru said that the government recognised education as the key to success in every society and as such increased the allocation of funds to the sector from 19 per cent in the previous administration to 22 per cent.

He said so far the state government had constructed 250 schools with state of the art facilities and supplied students free textbooks, uniforms, school bags and sandals.

He said the government would provide scholarships to 4,000 kindergarten pupils and urged the Federal Government to implement the kindergarten programme nationwide.

The Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, said the Kindergarten initiative was welcome development to the education sector and described it as the first of its kind in the country.

She said the idea would be adopted for implementation as a national programme.

A guest speaker at the conference, Mrs Adhiambo Odaga, who is the West African Director of Ford Foundation, said for Nigeria to meet the MDGs and its 20:20:20 vision, it must develop the education sector.

“It has to develop the educational sector, especially in the area of kindergarten, because a journey of 1000 miles begins with a step,” she said.

The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Education, Rep. Farouk Lawan, among other stakeholders, attended the event.