Earlier in the year, President Goodluck Jonathan commissioned the first almajiri model primary school constructed by the Federal Government in Sokoto. Since then, the Government through the Ministry of Education and her agencies, built about 100 of such schools in different parts of the country.
Several of these schools have been fully completed and are being furnished. Some are nearing completion, with the supervising Minister, Barr. Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, the nation’s Minister of State for Education working round the clock to ensure that the contractors deliver before the close of the year and in line with approved contractual specifications.
With efforts to address the challenges posed by the almjiri out-of-school children now in top gear, the Federal Government is now conscientiously working on the implementation of a novel educational programme targeted at the out-of-school children in South-East and South-South.
Like the almajiri programme, the out-of-school educational programme is a well thought out plan to ensure the trader boy-child in the South-East and the children of the South-South fishermen and other less privileged persons are not denied access to quality education because of their social and economic backgrounds.
Furthermore, the Federal Government is committed to ensuring that Nigerians from all geo-political zones of the Federation benefit from programmes and policies aimed at improving the quality of education nationwide. Having built a structure in the north with over eight million children out of the 10million out of school children in the country in the process of receiving needed education, it was only important to tackle the remaining less than two million children in the south.
The programme is being handled by the Minister of State for Education, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike who is coordinating the efforts of Federal Government agencies and their counterparts at the state level to ensure that the directive of President Goodluck Jonathan is dutifully implemented.
It is imperative to point out that before the Federal Government commenced the implementation of this programme, it involved the major stakeholders at the State Level. These stakeholders are expected to take a cue from the Federal Government and ensure that there is a trickling down effect of the programme in the interest of the larger majority of less privileged Nigerians in the South-East and South-South.
Under the programme, the Federal Government is building special basic education schools laced with vocational and technical components in all the eleven States of Southeast and Southsouth. The State Governments are to provide land for the schools, while the Federal Government through its interventionist agency, the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, will fund the construction of these schools.
Already, relevant curriculum is being worked out by the Nigerian Educational Research Development Council, NERDC, in conjunction with the Highbury College, United Kingdom for the schools. The curriculum will be ready before the physical structures of the schools are in place. Experts from both institutions are working round to clock to ensure that the curriculum that will be developed will be a realistic approach towards impacting into the less privileged children basic education, vocational and technical skills.
The input of states and other stakeholders are being harnessed in the process of developing this functional curriculum. This is important because upon completion, the Federal Government will hand over the schools to the states for administration. The Federal Government will also supply books and other relevant instructional materials to all the children that will attend these schools, the way the almajiris in the north are being catered for.
The essence of the interventions to accommodate less privileged children in educational programmes by the Jonathan administration is simply to underscore the point that no tier of government in the country can look the other way while our children roam the streets.
For Nigeria, the overall objective is Education for All. This is what every officer in the administration under the direction of President Jonathan is working hard to achieve.
•Nwakaudu is Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of State for Education.
