• Thursday, March 28, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

UNICEF partners Enugu state govt. to enhance education sector

businessday-icon

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is partnering with Enugu state government in developing ten years state education sector plan to provide a sustainable plan for the improvement of education service delivery for the state.

Speaking at a one day stakeholders forum to endorse, lunch and disseminate the Enugu state education sector plan organised by Enugu state ministry of education in collaboration with UNICEF, Ibrahim Conteh, the Chief of UNICEF Field Office Enugu, said that his organizations engagement with the Enugu state ministry of education was to support them in developing sector plans based on a lot of works that was on the back ground with a situation analysis to identify some weakness, some challenges and see how they could be addressed.

“The main purpose of the meeting was actually to hold consultations with stake holders to review the plan and see the applicability and produce a final working document for the state in the next ten years”.he said.

According to him Enugu state was doing well in education hence it was not a priority state for UNICEF interventions for the last country program in education, “we have to priorities because the resources are limited they are states and local governments that have bigger problems when you come to education”.he noted.

Explaining why UNICEF developed interest in the development of the education sector plan, he explained that UNICEF is an organization that takes care of welfare of children, “when we talk about children it is not just about an aspect of a child’s welfare we look at every aspects of the child and basic education is one of this components, this is why we are interested in supporting the government.

Earlier the Enugu state commissioner for Education Uche Ezeh commended UNICEF for her assistance and interventions in various sector in the state.

He said that UNICEF’s assistance was to ensure that the state develop education sector plan that would be implementable,because the focus of the state government was to develop an education system where every child, citizen will have access to quality and affordable education.

” Our intension is to develop this plan which UNICEF has helped us to develop that will guide our actions in the education sector, in this plan we have step by step package in the implementation of our package with measurable indicators that will enable us to see what we have achieved at every stage of our movement”.

The plan the commissioner said would help the ministry reposition education in the next ten years to ensure that the state has an education system that would produce the kind of citizens that will be productive , self reliance that can stand on their own pointing out that the important of education was to produce functional citizens and that it was the desire of the state government to produce the best.

“We are pleased that UNICEF has come to partner with us to see that we achieve our vision where every citizen of Enugu state will have the kind of education that will help them survive in this 21th century ”

He thanked the state governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for his zeal in the development of education in the state,that the governor had in the past years renovated 600 class room blocks,constructed new class room blocks,provided structural materials to facilitate teaching and leaning among many others across the 17 local government areas of the state.

“The idea is that when we straighten our basic education, create a firm foundation for our children, they will progress well,education is a life long process” he said.
Those who participated at the workshop include House of Assembly members, permanent secretaries, NUT,NAPPS, among others.

 

Regis Anukwuoji/Enugu