THE Federal Government has developed an accelerated one-year Basic Education curriculum for the purpose of mopping up the over 10.2 million out-of-school children from the street.
Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, made this known on Thursday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State Capital while declaring open the ministerial session of the 64th National Council on Education (NCE) meeting.
He said the accelerated curriculum developed by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) would be presented to the Council for ratification.
Adamu lamented that in the aftermath of the insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country, the nation has been left with orphaned children whose education has been disrupted in the process.
He added that this was accentuated by poverty, dislocation, socio-cultural and psychological factors, stressing that the 1-year accelerated curriculum would help recover the lost years and restore normalcy in the shortest possible time.
He further explained that the programme has a 1-year cycle with opportunities for mainstreaming learners at age-appropriate class levels in the regular school programme.
According to him, this would be piloted in Borno State and afterwards extended to other States affected by conflicts and dislocation.
He said: “On the strength of this, the NERDC has developed new contents which had been infused into the existing school curricula for quality, relevance and competitiveness.
“Some of the new contents are; Financial Literacy Education, Capital Market Studies, Trafficking in Persons Education, and Online safety education.
“These contents are created to support our national drive for quality and enterprise education and human capital development. They are also aimed at providing Nigerian children with the opportunity of acquiring functional education and life skills that are relevant to the 21st Century dynamic lifestyle, transient culture and skills set in the world of work,” he said.
Adamu noted that the theme of the Council meeting, Education for Self-Reliance, a tool for Achievement of Education 2030 Agenda was apt.
He spoke on how the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has improved on access and quality of education, disclosing that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has instituted programmes like Academic Staff Training and Development, saying under this over 24,500 staff of the tertiary institutions were sponsored to acquire Masters and Doctorate degrees both in Nigeria and outside the country.
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