Stakeholders task govt, others on access to education for pupils

Stakeholders in the education sector have tasked government, parents and guardians to work towards ensuring that every child has access to quality education.

As set out by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they pointed out that it was imperative for every child in Nigeria and across sub-Sahara Africa to have access to quality basic education.

They urged parents and guardians to, on their parts, ensure children are in school at the right time and not hawking on engaged in menial jobs when they ought to be in school.

Speaking at the “Make the Change,” seminar organised by a non-governmental organisation, Basic Education Africa (BEAFRICA), with the theme “Change the Future of Basic Education,” founder of the group, Abimbola Okoya, said the programme was organised to facilitate a dialogue between key stakeholders in basic education so as to contribute to the process of building a sustainable framework.

She said: “BEAFRICA’s mission is to significantly contribute to the advancement of Universal Basic Education (UBE) across Sub-Saharan Africa; highlight key issues that currently exist as barriers to children in Africa accessing quality basic education, and to work to proffer solutions to these problems.

“Statistic released by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2011, showed that 29.8 million children living in Sub-Saharan Africa were out of school, this is half of the total amount of 57 million of worldwide children who were out of school in 2011.

This information, she continued “may sound familiar, but the question is, who is going to do something about it? It is the responsibility of government to make the change we desire. Private organisations, parents and guardians should also play their roles because government alone cannot do it. Sharing what we have with our immediate community, we would be able to make a change together, in our community.”