Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo has called for universal support for education as a key foundation for bringing countries out of poverty.
Osinbajo stated this speaking at the launch of the ambitious World Education Week – a six-day online global education showcase with over 85,000 registered online attendees in 146 countries.
In his speech at the conference over the weekend, Osinbajo stated that We cannot talk about delivering quality education in today’s world without rethinking our models and leveraging on technology; and rethinking our education curricula to give students the relevant knowledge and skills to make them active contributors in today’s economy.
According to Osinbajo, “Quality of education is key since it is a predictor of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) – arguing that poor education policies and practices lose economic output, threatening to create a permanent state of economic backwardness. Increasing education and skills can boost a lower-income country’s GDP by 28 percent over the next 80 years”.
In supporting the federal government to achieve its goals, Teach for Nigeria announced the launch of it’s ambitious “10 by 10 SDG 4 Pledge” as an expression of it’s intention to scale it’s work to ensure that it delivers on its vision to achieve education equity. This pledge means that over the next ten years teach for Nigeria will work with select stakeholders to improve the learning outcomes of 10,000,000 children in schools across Nigeria. At Teach for Nigeria this will be done by attracting high potential candidates to partake in training programmes and thereafter place them in schools as teachers and school leaders.
Speaking on this announcement and during her Keynote address Folawe Omikunle, CEO Teach For Nigeria said: “The challenge we face requires unity. All stakeholders need to support government efforts to ensure that we lift our country out of poverty. At a steady state, over the next ten years, we will reach 500,000 children, but in order to meet the SDGs, we take this 10 by 10 Pledge to stretch ourselves so that we double our capacity and efforts to contribute to this goal. The 10 by 10 Pledge is a moral pledge that requires those that sign it to come together on a regular basis to share and support the work of all pledgers in order to achieve the potential of our country.”
Also commenting on this announcement, Gbenga Oyebode, the Chairman Board of Directors, Teach For Nigeria said: “The success of our society begins with the education of our young people and this needs to happen for all children in Nigeria. This is why Teach For Nigeria is very much about strengthening the public education system in Nigeria through developing a movement of leaders across the nation who are committed to putting an end to educational inequity.” said Oyebode.
The ground-breaking World Education Week event, featuring over 150 speakers and presentations to an audience of tens of thousands, is led by Vikas Pota, a globally-respected leader and driving force in the education, international development, philanthropy and technology sectors.
In launching the event, Vika Pota said: “I am incredibly inspired by the schools that applied to take part in this year’s World Education Week. Their commitment to improving the life chances of their learners by nurturing expertise and wanting to share their experience with others, especially in these challenging times, says a lot about the global education community. They are our heroes and World Education Week provides us all an opportunity not just to learn from them, but to celebrate their successes, too. By sharing the ways in which these schools have developed their expertise, we can encourage others to feel inspired to undertake the same journey to excellence. That is a real and tangible way in which World Education Week can accelerate progress on achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals”.
