Education
Invest On Teachers To Achieve SDGs 2030 – UNICEF
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reiterated the need for the Nigerian nation to double its investment on teachers, both in time and financial resources, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Education Manager, UNICEF, Mrs Manar Ahmed, stated this at a Two-Day Media Dialogue on SDGs themed: Scaling Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in Nigeria, in Kano, recently.
Ahmed who stated that the event was aimed at promoting, protecting, advocating and collaborating with stakeholders for the realisation of children rights in the country said that tackling teachers’ training was not enough but ensuring action plans for improving teaching and learning under the right environment.
According to her, Nigeria is not lacking the right policy but the country’s staggering learning crisis is one of the lowest globally.
“In sub Saharan Africa, 87 per cent of children are in learning poverty as they do not have basic literacy by age 10.
“Goal four of the SDGs is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education that promote lifelong learning and all children by age 10 must know how to read and solve numeracy. It is not that Nigeria lacks the right policy but Nigeria is facing staggering crisis with learning outcomes being one of the lowest.
“So, 70 per cent of the children in school are not achieving basic foundational skills,” she said.
While noting that 27 per cent of teaching staff in Nigeria were unqualified, Ahmed said qualified teachers were in short supply and stressed the need to learn to read in order to read to learn to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
“We need to do more in structural approach of learning, community engagement in ensuring accountability.
“Structural approach is best for training of teachers, so on-the-job training as well as creating the right environment is important,” she said.
Ahmed commended the country for her role in making huge change since 2017 when the national assessment of learning outcomes was carried out stating however that more needed to be done to achieve the 17 goals of the SDGs by 2030 with the increase in government allocation to education.
The River State Commissioner for Education, Dr Peters Nwagor has called on media practitioners in Rivers State to deploy their various communication platforms toward promoting government programmes and policies aimed at achieving sustainable development in the education sector. Dr. Nwagor made the appeal when members of the Etche Ethnic Practicing Journalists (EEPJ) paid him a courtesy visit in Office in Port Harcourt. The Commissioner emphasized the strategic role of the media in shaping public perception, promoting government initiatives, and supporting policies capable of improving the quality of education and human capital development in the state. According to him, constructive media engagement remains essential in creating public awareness on educational reforms, students’ welfare, infrastructural improvements, and other interventions being implemented by the state government. Speaking on the recent appro
