The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday said no fewer than 9.7m Nigerian students were at risk of never returning to school.
The UN body noted this in in Abuja during the launch of the Nigeria Learning Platform, an online, mobile and soon-to-be offline learning platform that will provide continuous education to three million learners in 2022 alone.
The UNICEF’s Executive Director, Catherine Russell, in a goodwill message delivered at the launch noted that the platform would help reach the most vulnerable and marginalised learners.
“Before COVID-19, about 10.5 million Nigerian children aged between 5 and 14 were not in school. Today in Nigeria, more than 9.7m children are at risk of never returning to school. The learning platform can help change that.
“By offering simple, easy and fun ways to learn, as well as tailor-made training programmes, the learning platform will help respond to the needs of every child. “With online, offline and mobile options, it can help us reach the most vulnerable and marginalised learners.”
The vice-president of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo who was represented by the minister of state for education, Emeka Nwajiuba, at the launch, noted that there must be a change in the education sector to ensure continuity of learning.
He said, “To ensure continuity of learning for all children and the resilience of education systems to future shocks, we must change and re-imagine the education sector.
“Deploying innovations that rethink the current methodologies, including new approaches to delivering education in ways that defy the digital divide, and ensuring learning continuity in emergencies, has become imperative.”
