Stakeholders in the education sector have tasked the Federal Government on the implementation of the 2004 Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act and other educational policies in conflict and protracted crisis zones with the aim to identify the proper meaning of free-education.
The stakeholders made the demand at a workshop on the implementation of the UBE Act and other educational policies in conflict and protracted crisis zones organised by a non-governmental organisation, Common Heritage Foundation in Abuja.
Participants at the workshop looked at how access, quality, and continuity of education can be assured in conflict and protracted crisis settings.
The Senior Special Educationist with the World Bank, Prof. Tunde Adekola said the initiative was timely especially when talking about education, specifically in crisis areas.
He called for a multi-sectoral approach to address the challenges facing education in conflict zones.
Adekola said: “And you need the service providers like the state and non-state actors to be able to participate. The non-state actors we are talking about are the community, civil society organisation, private sector, philanthropist, etc. Everybody needs to work together with several other government MDAs, to improve access and universal basic education.
“Part of the challenges are systemic, we should see how we can involve more partnerships, collaboration and cooperation from all the state actors to be able to focus on the issue of access, quality, equity and so on.
“The second one is the issue of quality, relevance, not about more money for education, teachers training but about more results, in the learning aspect like how many children can read and write before they get to age nine, how are we reducing the pupil teacher and pupil classroom ratio and so on.
“We need to set targets and set strategic plans with measurable indicators to be able to know how much that we are making. And then, be able to mobilise more resources from the state to be able to increase their funding to basic education and to be able to see how they can hold people accountable for their actions.”
Also, an Associate Prof of Law in Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Dr. Halima Doma, said the workshop brought together stakeholders to hear from group of researchers that have worked in the area of education, i.e. Universal Basic Education in Northeast, access to it and to what extent it has been implemented particularly in Adamawa State.
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Doma, who was the Chairman of the occasion, said Adamawa State was specifically researched on because of the recent attacks on education it has faced.
The Regional Research Director for International Rescue Committee (IRC) in charge of the project, Prof. Oladele Akogun, said the answer needed now was how the law was being implemented to make sure that people continued to have access to free education and that education was continuing even where there’s conflict and that the quality of education doesn’t change.
The Programme Manager, Common Heritage Foundation Dr. Adedoyin Adeshina, said that the Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) project was set out to answer just one question of: “How we can improve access, quality and continuity of education in conflict and crisis setting.”