New Telegraph

Ahmed: FG to host parley on educating, creating safe learning communities

The Federal Government, yesterday hinted that it is planning to impact, educate and create safe learning communities across the country, following a high-level dialogue and well-thought-out gathering titled: ‘Financing Safe Schools: Creating safe learning communities.’

 

The event is to be hosted by Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, tomorrow between 10am and 1.30pm, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja and also online.

 

A statement issued by her Special Adviser, Media and Communications, Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, Ahmed said investigation revealed that at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, international projections estimated that children missing out on five months of education would collectively result in $10 trillion in lost future incomes.

 

She said: “If trends continue, the worse-case scenario predicted is that half of all young people will not have skills necessary for entry level employment reducing country workforces and moving the countries back into poverty.

 

“Nigeria is facing a socio-economic crisis born out of an education crisis. As a result, history of poor education provision has been exacerbated by the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, and conflict across the country has led to over 13 million children being out of school- the highest rate of out of school children in the world.” Ahmed also noted that,‘out of school children’ are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse and critically are ‘fundamentally illequipped’ to positively contribute productively to the economy. Providing the basis for the gathering, she cites a wide range of understandings:

 

“The World Bank have coined the term ‘learning poverty’, which measures quality and quantity of learning in developing countries. Recent studies show only 20 per cent of children in the North-East of Nigeria who complete primary school can read.” The statement added: “Education is critical to Nigeria’s future given almost 44 percent of Nigeria’s population are between the ages of 0-14.

 

“The World Bank estimates that COVID-19 may have increased learning poverty from 53 per cent to 63 percent in countries like Nigeria. The impact of out of school children in Nigeria is a structural impediment to Nigeria achieving the SDGs.

 

“The impact of conflict on education is especially stark for girls with lower literacy rates across the country for females of 12 per cent compared to males.

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