The federal government has said that machineries have been put in place to stamp out the drop out syndrome currently ravaging the education sector.
This was disclosed by the Minister of State for Education, Barr Ezenwo Nyesom Wike at the 12th Girls’ Education (GE) National Steering Committee Meeting in Abuja
Wike said that for Nigeria to achieve its targets in education and social sector development, there is the need for collaboration of all stakeholders at federal, states and local government levels as well as the private sector.
He said: “The federal government is determined to ensure parity in the country’s education system, adding that equity (and access) has been chosen as one of the priority areas in the ministry’s 4-year strategic plan.”
The minister recalled that Nigerian government is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 2- “Achieve Universal Primary and Junior Secondary Education” and (MDG) 3- “Eliminate gender disparities in education by 2015”.
According Wike, “Girls’ education activities during phase 2 focused on system building. Already this has proved to be highly effective; hence the partners’ readiness to come up with the phase 3”.
The objective of the meeting, he said, was to deliberate on the end of GEP 2 evaluation report, briefs on GEP 3 operational plan; progress reports on Girls’ Education (GE) from states as well as report from states with Boy-child education challenges and the way forward.
The minister said “My ministry has made a series of interventions towards ensuring effective community participation in the management and implementation of education policies in the states.
“I therefore encourage you to sustain the activities of SBMCs and mothers’ associations in schools towards ensuring access, retention and completion.
“The drop-out syndrome of the girls/boys from schools is seriously being addressed through the rehabilitation of our schools and advocacy visits to states to sensitise women. We therefore implore the states, IDPs, NGOS, CSOs, and FBOs to collaborate with government for effective and speedy sensitisation of all stakeholders to support girls and boys education,” he appealed.