UNICEF pledges continuous support towards educational devt in Nigeria’s North East
Story from Usman IBRAHIM, Yola
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has pledged to sustain its support to enable more children to have access to education in the North East.
Ms Christian Munduate, the UNICEF Country Representative in Nigeria, stated this when she visited the American University of Nigeria (AUN)’s Feed and Read Programme for 100 out-of-school children in partnership with UNICEF in Yola.
She disclosed that plans were underway to increase enrollment capacity for more children to access the services.
Munduate called on the state government to provide funding for the development of education at the grassroots and reiterated the need for the private sector to be committed to children’s success in life.
The UNICEF representative said children need to be educated so they don’t become a liability to society in the future.
She advised the beneficiaries to be serious with the class so they can gain knowledge and be useful for themselves, their families and the community in the future.
“We have 50 girls and 50 boys in the programme and the idea is to expand this accelerated programme to cater for the children’s studies in a short period.
“And the good news about these children is that their capacity to learn is amazing.
“From what I have seen, they are really advancing and to them without this programme, they will not have the opportunity to come to school to learn, read and write basic arithmetic,” the UNICEF official said.
Munduate added that when the children come of age, they would have access to more opportunities for employment, entrepreneurship and even farming.
Professor Yusuf Attahiru, interim president of AUN, appreciated UNICEF for positively impacting children in the state and country at large.
According to him, AUN is also committed to community services and community development which resulted in the success recorded on the ongoing Feed and Read Programme, among others.
He called for more partnerships for the development of education and other programmes in the institution.
In his remarks, Dr Salihi Ateque, Executive Chairman of Adamawa State Universal Basic Education, appreciated the contributions of UNICEF to the development of basic education in the state.
The Chairman who was represented by Mr Joel Jutum said all the programmes and interventions have been of a great impact on the pupils, especially the teaching at the right level and distribution of learning materials among others.
