ALAUSA, UNESCO STRENGTHEN COLLABORATION ON EDUCATION REFORMS
By: Safiya Abdulrahim Dabban
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has urged UNESCO to deepen its partnership with Nigeria in implementing reforms aimed at transforming the country’s education sector.
Alausa made the call in Abuja while receiving the new UNESCO Country Representative to Nigeria, Professor Isaiah Barreto Da Rosa, during a courtesy visit.
The minister said over one million out-of-school children had returned to classrooms within the last 20 months, while nearly 6.7 million girls had benefited from interventions designed to improve school enrolment and retention.
He said the government would continue to support girl-child education while also addressing challenges affecting boys, stressing that every Nigerian child must have access to quality education.
According to Alausa, the government’s reform agenda covers technical and vocational education, STEM, the return of out-of-school children to school, digitalisation, girl-child education and quality assurance.
He welcomed UNESCO’s support in teacher training, TVET and digital education, urging the organisation to align its interventions with existing government programmes.
Da Rosa reaffirmed UNESCO’s commitment to Nigeria’s education sector and expressed readiness to expand cooperation in teacher development, TVET and the reintegration of out-of-school children.
He said UNESCO programmes had so far trained more than 28,000 teachers and reached over 1.7 million students across different states.
The engagement is expected to further strengthen Nigeria-UNESCO cooperation in advancing education reforms nationwide.