Over 9.7m pupils risk not returning to school, says UNICEF

More than 9.7 million Nigerian pupils are at risk of not returning to school, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) yesterday said.

UNICEF’s Executive Director, Catherine Russell, stated this during the launch of the Nigeria Learning Platform, an online, mobile and soon-to-be offline learning platform in Abuja.

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The platform will provide continuous education to three million learners in 2022 alone and 12 million by 2025.

According to the global body, the Nigerian Learning Passport is designed for pre-primary, primary and secondary school learning.

It said children, youth and teachers can access a digitalised curriculum providing learning materials in all core curriculum subjects for primary one to six and all Junior and Senior Secondary School (JSS and SSS) classes.

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UNICEF stressed that with the launch, Nigeria has joined 20 power countries in the world where the Learning Passport is reaching children with improved learning opportunities.

In a goodwill message, Russell noted that the “passport” would help education resources to reach the most vulnerable and marginalised learners.

She said: “Before COVID-19, about 10.5 million Nigerian children, aged between 5 and 14, were not in school. Today in Nigeria, more than 9.7 million children are at risk of never returning to school, their learning left behind. The learning passport can help change that.

“By offering simple, easy and fun ways to learn, as well as tailor-made training programmes, the learning platform will help respond to the needs of every child.

“With online, offline and mobile options, it can help us reach the most vulnerable and marginalised learners.”

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said there must be a change in the Education sector to ensure continuity of learning.

The Vice President, who was represented by the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, said: “To ensure continuity of learning for all children and the resilience of education systems to future shocks, we must change and reimagine the Education sector.

“Deploying innovations that rethink the current methodologies, including new approaches to delivering education in ways that defy the digital divide and ensuring learning continuity in emergencies, has become imperative.”

The vice president said there had been significant improvement in the sector but access to learning remained a big challenge

“Over the last decade, Nigeria has made great strides in improving access to education. In the last five years, pre-primary school participation has increased from 45 per cent to 61 per cent; primary enrollment has increased by 5 million. The rate of out-of-school children has decreased by 10 per cent, from 42 per cent to 32 per cent.

“These are phenomenal achievements, but access to school does not equate to learning. Nigeria is facing a learning crisis. Millions of children and young people are not developing even the basic skills they need to break out of poverty, due to destruction to schooling and learning by incessant security, COVID-19 as well as more recent attacks.

“To ensure continuity of learning for all children and the resilience of education systems to future shocks, we must change and reimagine the Education sector.

“Deploying innovations that rethink the current methodologies, including new approaches to delivering education in ways that defy the digital divide, and ensuring learning continuity in emergencies, has become imperative.

“This launch set the foundation for creating a system of education where digital technology will be used to transform the way that learning is provided and meet the needs of every child. The NLP is an effective tool to ensure the continuity of learning through access to curriculum,” he said.

UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, said the deployment of the learning platform would provide learning opportunities when face-to-face interaction is not feasible or when children need to revise what they have learnt in school.

Hawkins said the platform could be quickly deployed, customised and scaled-up nationally, including in low connectivity areas.

He said the digital platform would address the over 89 per cent of learners who do not have access to computers in the home and over 82 per cent of learners who do not have access to the internet across Nigeria.

Education Minister Adamu Adamu said the platform would be an effective tool for learning in the country.

The minister who was represented by the acting Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Gender, urged the private sector to key into and ensure sustainability of the project.

A learner can register on the platform, using any device with a web browser, or through NLP.education.gov.ng.

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