Day: May 3, 2024

A scholar, Mr Namse Udosen has called on the federal and state governments to develop a Literacy Development Plan to effectively address the learning poverty in the country.

Udosen, a master’s student of international education and development, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, made the call in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigerian on Friday.

He argued that Nigeria and its federating states have been struggling with literacy development for years without success, due to lack of concrete plan to address the challenge in primary schools.

He said that so far, no state in Nigeria has a literacy development plan, stressing the need for government at all levels to develop the plan to improve learning outcomes in basic schools.

According to him, the plan, if developed, will guide primary education delivery system, and ensure that the right human and material resources are deployed to improve reading instructions.

‘It will also assist in improving literacy rates by effectively utilising metho
dologies based on acceptably defined knowledge parameters and empirical processes.

‘The literacy development plan policy will equally serve as a valuable resource for designing in-service teacher training.’

He also stressed the need to align literacy goals in the Universal Basic Education Policy with pedagogy, teacher training, learning resources, school plants and local cultures at the state level in Nigeria.

He said that the national and states’ Policy on Education were designed to inculcate literacy, numeracy, and effective communication skills in pupils, but lacked the needed quantitative indicators that align with the policy objectives.

Udosen said that the current National Policy on Basic Education and the State Basic Education Policies needed to be more specific about teaching aids and other instructional materials design and development.

According to him, basic education teachers can only develop pupils’ reading and critical thinking skills effectively, if they understand the constructs associate
d with literacy instruction.

He also urged education planners in the country to work with language experts to develop orthographies of different languages to guide curriculum design.

‘Literacy assessment tools should also be designed in different languages for different basic education levels.

‘This will help measure the achievement of set targets, guide instruction, and provide remediation for students with divergent learning abilities.

‘The governments should also create supplementary materials with local stories and cultural references that align with the national curriculum and provide high-quality teaching materials for all,’ he said.

The scholar also stressed the need to collect data on student learning outcomes, teacher implementation, and programme costs to monitor literacy improvement.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

A Civil Society Organisation, Initiative for Better and Brighter Nigeria (IBBN), Osun Chapter, has called for the safety and protection of journalists in Nigeria and worldwide in general.

The group made the call in a release by its Coordinator, Angel Folorunso, in Osogbo on Friday, in commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day.

Folorunso decried the way journalists were being maimed and killed globally , in the line of duty, calling for special protection and safety of the pen pushers in the cause of their operation.

‘We are appalled by the rate at which journalists are killed, maimed and/or imprisoned while on duty globally in the course of gathering and disseminating news

‘ A critical function propelling Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, incorporating the right to freedom of speech and expression.

‘This right has been ingrained in various national constitutions as supported by UNESCO, an agency of the United Nations whose mandate is to ensure freedom of expression and the safe
ty of journalists and the issue of impunity,’ he said.

According to him, Osun IBBN is unhappy with all extrajudicial killings or maiming of journalists anywhere, including Nigeria.

‘The theme of the World Press Freedom Day 2024 is : ‘A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Face of the Environment Crisis.

‘The theme is apt now that climate change is massively wreaking havoc all over the world.

‘Developmental journalism needs to be enhanced to generate awareness on environmental issues such as deforestation, desertification, global warming, pollution, flood, and nuclear warheads’ threats and their consequences.l,’ he said

He stressed that in view of the enormous jobs heaped on the shoulders of journalists, it’s wrong to imprison, gag and kill them by both the State and non-State actors anywhere.

He called on governments all over the world, to compensate journalists who had been maltreated in the course of duty.

‘According to International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Report, no fewer than 2356 journ
alists were killed between 1990.and 2020.

‘Many of them were jailed and denied access to information with little or no compensation.

‘We implore Nigerian government to enable journalists have access to corporate information which is the oxygen of democracy, while journalists should report issues fairly accurately on a balance scale,’ he said

He called on civil society organisations, judicial actors and government to protect journalists and other citizens against all forms of attacks and extrajudicial killings.

He said journalists too should imbibe ethics and shun misinformation and disinformation by fact checking their stories in order to avoid falling into the unethical lure and lores of the social media

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

The Anambra Disability Rights Commission has called on local airlines to protect the rights of Persons with Disabilities (PWD).

Mr Chukwuka Ezewuzie , the commission’s chairman, made the plea at a press conference in Abuja on Friday.

He alleged that some local airlines had been discriminating against PWD with impunity.

Ezewuzie cited an incident, which involved him in 2019, where an airliner insisted that he must produce a travel companion before he could board a plane from Abuja to Anambra.

Ironically, the chairman said, he boarded the same airline to Abuja without a companion for the conference he attended.

‘ I told them that i have travelled alone unsupervised to 21 countries through 50 airports around the world, without a travel companion, they refused to allow me travel alone.

‘ This caused me to spend more money in securing another ticket with a different airline that did not require a travel companion,’ he said.

Ezewuzie said the purpose of the press conference was to draw the attention of loca
l airlines to the special needs of PWD.

‘ It is also to call on the airlines to respect the federal laws, respect the provisions of the international convention of the rights of PWD community.

‘ To respect the resolution of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) that is the umbrella organisation for all the airlines around the world.

‘ Also, we want the domestic airlines in Nigeria to pay attention to the law of the land, to the needs of PWD community and to the rule of the organisation they subscribe to,” he said.

The chairman called on stakeholders to work assiduously toward eliminating all forms of barriers to accessing air transportation by PWD.

‘ The World Health Organisation has estimated that more than 1.3 billion people live with some form of disability, which constitutes approximately 16 per cent of the world’s population.

‘ The airline commitment to accessible air transport was reaffirmed at the 2019 IATA Annual General Meeting , when IATA members approved a Resolution on PWD comm
unity.

‘ The UN Convention on the rights of PWD community requires its parties to take appropriate measures , so that PWD community have access.

‘They should have access on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation and others, both in the urban and rural areas,” he said.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman has pledged to flush out persons in public and private organisations working with fake certificates.

Mamman made this known while speaking in Abuja on Friday when he received the report of an Inter-Ministerial Investigative Committee on Degree Certificate Milling from the Chairman of the committee, Prof. Jubrila Amin.

The News Agency of Nigeria report that the minister of education on Jan. 9, inaugurated an Inter-Ministerial Committee to examine the veracity of allegations of degrees racketeering within both foreign and local private universities.

The committee was mandated to review the role of any MDAs or its officials in facilitation of the recognition and procurement of fake certificates in question.

Mamman, who expressed sadness over what has been uncovered during the investigations, said that the ministry would work with relevant agencies to sanitise the education sector and rid it of any fake tendencies.

‘We can’t afford to have the integrity of our e
ducation soar by some few persons.

‘It is possible that some are carrying fake certificates in public and private organisations who needs to be flushed out. This report is a product of a thorough investigation.

‘It is sad that someone who should come out from a Nigerian institution with a 2:1 or 2:2 is now parading an international certificate of first class.

‘The ministry is determined to take steps to sanitise the system,’ he said.

He pledged to take decisive role to ensure standards were enshrined in the system saying that ‘we can’t afford to let down our country when it comes to standards’.

Presenting the report, Chairman of the Inter-ministerial Committee, Amin, decried the horrible standards of education in those schools saying that many of those schools awarding degree certificates were an eye saw.

Amin said the problems at hand required speedy intervention, recommending that all agencies in the sector must digitise/automate their system.

He said that automating the entire education system was a
way to go in such a way that you could sit in your office and monitor what is happening in all tertiary institutions.

According to him, in the course of our investigation, we realise that the present programme of accreditation and evaluation of results is inadequate.

He called for more universities in the country, saying that more universities to train PhD holders would help a lot rather than Nigerians going outside in search of certificates while ending up getting fake certificates.

He therefore, urged the National Universities Commission (NUC) to pay more attention to institutions offering part time or sandwich programmes so we don’t have a repeat of 2017 saga of centres offering unaccredited courses.

‘People go and get fake degrees and we have been to those countries and we know what a proper degree looks like, we know what the fake one looks like.

‘We have given it to the ministry to scrutinise anyone presenting a certificate from those institutions and anything else is fake.

‘it is up to the minist
ry to find out people with fake certificates and deal with them in whatever way they derm fit,’ he said

Source: News Agency of Nigeria