NERDC Launches Educational Programme for Out-of-School Children
By Mukhtar Ya’u Madobi
The Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) has launched a programme tagged, “Accelerated Basic Education Programme (ABEP)”.
ABEP seeks to address the problem of children abandoning their academic pursuits.
Its launching took place at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, in Abuja, during, “The National Roll Out of the Accelerated Basic Education Programme”.
The programme will among other objectives help reduce the ever-increasing number of Nigeria’s out-of-school children.
According to United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. UNICEF said that one out of every five out-of-school children in the world is a Nigerian.
In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of NERDC, Prof. Ismail Junaid, noted that Nigeria’s educational system has over the years been retrogressing as a result of terrorist activities, which forced many children in the North to drop out of school.
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He explained that ABEP is used today as a standard descriptive term for flexible, and age-appropriate education programme, to provide pathway to mainstreaming learners into various levels of schooling.
“The overaching objective of ABEP is to provide an alternative educational programme suitable for the needs of overage out-of-school children and youths, and in the process mainstream them to regular school programme or provide them with alternative career path through enrolment into vocational training centers,” Junaid added.
The NERDC boss said that ABEP is structured to run under three consecutive levels where curriculum contents of Primary One up to Junior Secondary Schools Three were expected to be covered during the period of the study.
Junaid noted added that the subjects selected for the programme are; Mathematics, English Language, Basic Science and Technology, History and either one indigenous language of Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo.
Dignitaries present at the event include the Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Deputy European Union Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Minister of Education, Registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO) and also, the Registrar of Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).
Others are the representatives of local and international donor agencies such as Plan International, Save the Children, Care International, Action Aid International, and Mac-Arthur Foundation, among others, who are part of the sponsors of the programme.
