The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has called on government at all levels to focus on the skills-based educational system, to build the needed critical human resource for national development.
Euphrates Wose, the UNICEF chief of education, told the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Birinin Kebbi on Saturday, September 21, 2019, that education system must be tailored into moulding children into skilled and resourceful Nigerian citizens.
According to her, only an education system that empowers children with the needed skills would prepare them to make a difference in their immediate community, state and the nation at large.
Wose noted that the country’s education sector was endowed with huge resource and a decentralised structure from the state to the zonal level, local government and down to the headteacher and the teachers.
She, however, said that there seem to be lack of systematic coordination and clear direction of the country’s education system.
“I have had the privilege of visiting schools in Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara in the last one week and interacted with the children, the teachers and the school-based management committees.
“I also had the opportunity of interacting with Education Secretaries at the Local Government Level, Area Coordinators, Education Officers, Supervisors, traditional rulers and other stakeholders.
“But it was not clear to me, the government’s direction on education; what is the grand plan? Where is the education leading to?
She stressed that one of the things she kept hearing was enrollment, which according to her is not enough.
