…seeks support of media professionals

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has expressed concern over the increasing level of Learning poverty among Nigerian children.

Learning poverty is a situation whereby a child can not read and understand simple text at age ten.

According to UNICEF, this development has continued to affect development in the region, hence the need for a concerted effort especially by the media to promote foundational Literacy and Numeracy.

The need to put an end to the ugly situation necessitated a two day South-West media dialogue on Foundational literacy and Numeracy” organised by UNICEF in collaboration with the Edo State SUBEB, Edo State Ministry of Education and the National Orientation Agency(NOA) Lagos State Directorate

In her introductory remark, the Communications Officer, UNICEF Nigeria, Blessing Ejiofor
said the workshop was to brainstorm on how the media can support the push for effective digital learning among Nigerian children.

Giving an overview of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, an Education Specialist, UNICEF Nigeria, Yetunde Oluwatosin confirmed that learning poverty highlighted some of the steps by UNICEF to address some bottlenecks to include, “remedial programming in regular schooling for both primary & JSS, Focus on girls at the intersection with other deprivations, Increasing emphasis on reaching poorest and rural children, Scale models on OOSC & learning (including catch-up learning), Build a model on transition to & completion of secondary education and advocate for education financing.

She recommended the need to continue to identify and address deficiencies in teacher competencies & professional conduct, address critical shortage of teachers in schools; improve teacher pupil ratio and pupil classroom ratio, Scale up RANA as an approach to accelerating acquisition of reading and numeracy skills (including use of the LIE), address social inclusion of differently-abled pupils and persons with special needs in both methodology.

Earlier, the Commissioner for Education, Edo State, Dr. Joan Ovawe, affirmed that Edo State Government had introduced various policies and programmes to enhance learning and teaching especial at the elementary stage which is the foundation level for children.

According to her, under the EdoBest initiate, students in Edo State have access to necessary technological facilities and instructional materials that has assisted their learning ability and improve delivery of teachers.

She commended UNICEF for her support for education saying “We acknowledge all that UNICEF have been doing; on our part, we engage artisans under mass literacy initiative and learning by correspondence to teach them on how to read and write.

“We also introduced technology into our learning agenda, also distributed learning tablets for students and teachers, to encourage them and ensure that the learning activities are well structured and centralised.

“The special students are also captured in this initiative and the idea is to ensure total inclusiveness in our education agenda,” She added

Also, the Executive Chairperson, Edo SUBEB, Mrs. Eyitayo Salami said Edo State Government, led by Governor Obaseki, implemented the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) programme to improve basic education across the state.

She said through the EdoBEST, the government is transforming learning outcomes for the 300,000 children across 1,029 public primary and 471 junior secondary schools in Edo State.

EdoBEST is a Government designed and lead programme that is re-training all 15,000 government teachers – novice and experienced – to be technologically supported and empowered teachers.

Participants at the programme promised to use their platforms to create better awareness on digital learning and support government to end learning poverty.

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