•As Education Minister seeks deeper UNESCO partnership
•Warns against leaving boys behind
By Joseph Erunke
THE federal government has announced that more than one million out-of-school children have returned to classrooms in the last 20 months, in what it described as a major breakthrough in its ongoing education reform agenda.
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja while receiving the newly appointed United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, Country Representative to Nigeria, Professor Isaiah Barreto Da Rosa, on a courtesy visit.
Alausa, while seeking deeper collaboration with UNESCO, said the government was determined to consolidate the gains recorded in access to education, while tackling persistent challenges threatening the quality and inclusiveness of the nation’s education system.
The minister also revealed that nearly 6.7 million girls had benefited from interventions designed to improve access to and retention in school, stressing, however, that the government must now ensure that boys didn’t become the forgotten victims of the education crisis.
According to him, while the gains recorded in girl-child education must be sustained, Nigeria’s human capital development agenda requires a balanced approach that caters for the educational needs of every child.
He said: “We must ensure that no child is left behind. While we continue to make progress in girl-child education, we must also pay attention to the educational needs of boys.”
Alausa identified six priority areas driving the administration’s education transformation agenda to include Technical and Vocational Education and Training, TVET; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, STEM; reintegration of out-of-school children; data and digitalisation; girl-child education; and quality assurance.
He said the government was making significant investments in skills development, technology and teacher capacity, with reliable education data increasingly being deployed to identify gaps, target interventions and measured outcomes.
On teacher development, the minister welcomed UNESCO’s technical support, highlighting the ministry’s accelerated teacher professional programme, which targets one million in-service teachers.
He also acknowledged UNESCO’s contributions to TVET assessment, digital transformation, peace education and media and information literacy, and urged the organisation to align its interventions with programmes already established by the Nigerian government.
Alausa said stronger partnerships would be critical to accelerating the reforms and translating government policies into measurable improvements in learning outcomes.
Earlier in his remarks, UNESCO Country Representative, Professor Da Rosa, reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s education transformation agenda, describing UNESCO as a technical partner ready to deploy expertise in areas identified by the Nigerian government.
Da Rosa recalled UNESCO’s longstanding presence in Nigeria since the 1960s, noting its interventions in TVET, teacher development, education for peace, science, culture, communication and information.
He commended the ministry’s progress in digitising education data and expressed UNESCO’s readiness to deepen cooperation in TVET, teacher capacity development and the reintegration of out-of-school children.
The UNESCO representative disclosed that UNESCO-supported programmes had trained more than 28,000 teachers across different states and reached over 1.7 million students, adding that the organisation’s specialised institutes remained available to provide additional technical expertise
Reaffirming Nigeria’s commitment to the partnership, Alausa assured UNESCO that the ministry would continue to work closely with the organisation to deliver practical results under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s education reform agenda.
He said the federal government would continue to mobilise domestic resources while leveraging strategic international partnerships to expand access, improve quality and equip Nigerian children and young people with the knowledge and skills required to contribute meaningfully to national development.
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