
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has engaged the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) to review and develop the state education sector plan.
Desk Officer, NIEPA-UNICEF in Bauchi state, Dr Sunday Adegbesan stated this at a forum with stakeholders in the State.
Dr. Sunday Adegbesan said that UNICEF’s engagement with the various state ministries of education was to support them in developing sector plans 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 stakeholders to review plans and see their applicability and produce a final working document for each of the eight states under review”, he said
Dr. Adegbesan who represented the Acting Director General and Chief Executive Officer of NIEPA Dr. David Shofoyeke explained that basic education is one of the components of a child’s welfare and it must be critically looked into to provide the necessary support where necessary.
The Bauchi State UNICEF Focal Officer Mr. Raphael Aiyedipe opined that UNICEF’s assistance was to ensure that the state developed an education sector plan that would be implementable.
According to the statement by Bodunde Tenabe of Media Unit in the Directorate Department of NIEPA, Ondo state, the focus of the state government was to develop an education system where every child, and citizen would have access to quality and affordable education.
The focal state are Bauchi, Gombe, Katsina, Yobe, Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Cross Rivers aimed to address emerging issues such as crisis, disaster management, gap analysis, disability education, and framework development.