By Victoria Ojeme and Fortune Eromosele, Abuja

As activities geared towards the 2023 general elections gathers momentum, an international, non-profit and civil society organization, Malala Fund, has called on journalists to prioritise conversations on education and synergise with the government to harbour national development

Program Director, Malala Fund, Fatima Askina made the call during the high-level presentation of the Civil Society Manifesto on Education and a discussion on Gender Transformative Education with Senior Journalists, in Abuja.

According to her, “We are here to talk about education in Nigeria ahead of the 2023 election, and also share with the participants the Manifesto that is being developed by the Malala fund and civil society organizations of Nigeria through the National group working on basic education in Nigeria.

“Our approach is to remake the educational system in Nigeria and not just the way that political candidates do not commit and after one year in the office you ask him/her, they would say I didn’t mention something of such.

She added that: “This manifesto is a very important document because it is a collective effort from different civil society organizations and also support from development partners like FCDO, World Bank, UNICEF and others.

“We are working to ensure that this is endorsed by many other organizations and individuals and it should guide strategic conversations with candidates as well as ensure that we do follow up even after the election. It is just like a guiding document that would support our advocacy to the government.”

She explained that the document is like a guiding document that would support  advocacy to the government but that it would also highlight priority for the ordinary individuals and the layman, for them to be abreast with the educational sector and understand what it means and the state of education in Nigeria currently.

On her part, Gender lead, Development Research and Projects Center, DPRC, Dr. Plangsant Bitrus Dayil, said, “It’s high time we begin to set an education agenda in this country moving forward to 2023, we are all witness to the fact that there are a lot of challenges facing the education sector and this is why this gathering is very important.”

She called on the Ministry of Education to bring sex education back into its curriculum saying that sex education was not about sex but that it was to make people understand some of the major challenges related to these kind of stereotypes.