Malala Fund solicits policy for quality education

Malala Fund has called on the government at all levels to do more to improve the quality of education, which would reduce the number of out-of-school children.

News Agency of Nigeria • June 25, 2024

Malala Yousafzai (Credit: Malala Fund)

Malala Fund advocacy manager Femi Aderibigbe has called on the government at all levels to do more to improve the quality of education, which would reduce the number of out-of-school children.

He made the call on Tuesday in Abuja during a training session on ‘Change Reporting Media Fellowship on Gender Responsive Education Planning’, which was organised to develop journalists’ skills.

He also emphasised the importance of funding education as critical to human capital development.

According to him, the training is co-organised by two civil society organisations to build the capacity of 27 journalists across the country with the resources needed to hold the government accountable in the education sector.

He said the programme would develop journalists’ skills to focus on measurable impact and issue-based reports, as well as their ethics to create credible stories in the sector.

Mr Aderibigbe noted that the country provided free education, that is, Universal Basic Education, for nine years. That meant that it invested in its children up to the stage where they were to make career decisions and then withdrew funding.

He said many people made their career decisions much later in life and not at the end of their junior secondary school level when free education stopped.

Mr Aderibigbe called for a review of government policy on UBE, stressing the need to improve funding as it is connected to human capital development and the nation’s economic prosperity.

Also, Murtala Mohammed, the founder of one of the partnering civil society organisations, System Strategy and Policy Laboratory, urged the fellows to base their reporting on evidence-based, verifiable data and adhere to best practices in journalism.

He stressed the importance of good and qualitative education, adding that the state governments had to prioritise education in line with sustainable development goal four.

Mr Mohammed, however, called on all the states to develop gender-responsive education sector plans to address some of the issues bedevilling the sector.

(NAN)

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