BY SUSAN EDEH, Bauchi

THE quest for attaining qualitative basic Education is the main thrust of the Nigeria Northern Education, (NEI), a four year funded project by the United States Agency for International Development, (USAID), in collaboration with the Bauchi State Ministry of Information. Towards achieving this main objective, it decided to strengthen both state and local government capacity to offer basic education, so that every child, especially the orphans and vulnerable children , (OVC) can gain access to quality basic education.

Almajiris: Children particularly boys who have never attended school.

NEI’s passion and drive for orphans and vulnerable children to acquire basic education, especially in the northern part of the country, where the attitude to education is ranked very low, further prompted NEI to organise a three day workshop for media practitioners, with the theme, “The Training of Journalists on Strategic Reporting”.

The workshop was targeted at enhancing the knowledge of media practitioners regarding Orphans and Vulnerable Children and their basic education issues .The workshop also sought to increase the skills of Journalist to effectively report on educational issues, upgrade their knowledge on NEI and encourage their support in achieving NEI’S project goals.

A national survey conducted by NEI, shows that 43 percent of primary school age girl child do not have access to basic education and approximately two million girls more than boys are out of school. The percentage of girls and boys who have never attended school stands at 34percent and 39 percent respectively.

For secondary school, the figures are 10percent and 15 percent. The low rate of girl child enrollment in schools, has led to three fundamental question asked by NEI. The first is: Why is there a large percentage of children who do not go school? Secondly, what are the factors responsible for this? And lastly, how can government and NEI intervene?

Another statistics carried out by NEI shows that among some of the states in the north-east , which comprise Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi, Yobe and Borno state, have high percentage of children, ranging from 6-16 years, who have never attended school. Borno state recorded the highest percentage of 72 percent, while Yobe state recorded 58 percent. Going by the same statistics given by NEI, the intervention from the state government and Universal Basic Education, (UBE), to ease the burden of parents in sending their children to school, still did not make any meaningful impact in solving the problem of poor educational achievement among children.

With the deteriorating state in the educational sector in the country, especially in the northern parts of the country, NEI, further intensified its efforts in ensuring that the general public, government at all levels, stakeholders in the country and other donor agencies are adequately enlightened about the challenges of girl child education and OVC related issues.

In achieving this, it discovered that the media plays a very important role in influencing behavioral change, public opinion and government policy at the federal, state and local government level on education, hence the dire need for the workshop. NEI also was optimistic that at the end of the workshop, relevant stakeholders in the state will be motivated at ensuring that all children of primary school age, including girls, orphans and vulnerable children are in school.

During the opening ceremony, the Senior Teacher Education Advisor Mr. Nurudeen Lawal, who represented the acting Chief of party of NEI, urged journalists to work in partnership with the NEI project to highlight the plight of the beneficiaries and to promote education in Bauchi state.

He added that given the stipulated period of four years time-frame for NEI, the project is catalyzing on the delivery of some services that will aid state and local government in rendering basic education to school children and it intends to achieve that by working intensively with 10 local governments in the state, four government primary school, two Islamiya schools and a non formal learning centre, per local government, which sums up to the total of 100 demonstration school per state.

This approach by NEI is to build capacity and provide hands on experience and demonstrate that the system and the procedures are viable.

Journalists engaged in practical field work during the workshop. When a senior OVC expert, Mallam Muktar Gaya , in Yankari, was asked on solutions to the problem of OVC issues in the state, he said, “the plight of orphans and vulnerable children in the country, is one of the challenges facing the country. In order to solve this problem to the barest minimum, parents and guardians should not take lightly the education of their children. Religious leaders should also take it as a responsibility to educate their followers on the need to send their children to school.

The legislature should also enact laws that would compel parents to send their children to school, wherein, those who fails to obey the law, punitive measures should be carried out on them”.

In a paper presentation during the workshop, titled, “the role of the media in serving public need”, Director of information in the state ministry of information, Alhaji Mohammad Bello Inuwa, pointed out that commercialization of the media has been identified as one of the major impediment truncating the efforts of journalists from carrying out its social responsibility, particularly as it concerns educating the public on issues that could result to behavioral change.

He said that since the main thrust of NEI, is assisting state and local government in the delivery of basic quality education to the people, NEI, cannot by itself carry out this great task, but with the collaborative efforts of the media, government and stakeholders, 90% of the challenges facing orphans and vulnerable children from acquiring basic education, will be surmounted.

The Media expert noted that just creating awareness on children and OVC issues is not adequate in itself, but that the media can encourage people to act on that information, by allowing people to express their fears and concerns, engaging them in dialogue, increase its coverage, encouraging field visit and giving a voice to every stakeholders.

According to him, a proper response to the orphan’s solution will include providing free boarding school and introducing teachers’ salaries in Islamic schools. This, he noted, will reduce the misery of Almajiri.

The Director then advised journalists that in order to educate the public effectively on OV C related issues, there was a need for them to keep themselves abreast with the trends in the country, so as to be adequately armed with information, because according to him, “ it is only when a journalist is fully equipped with knowledge, that he can deliver quality information that will bring buried topics to light, promote policies and inspire authorities to allocate greater budgets for education.

Since the work of a journalist has a major effect on public policy and understanding the way government act in the future, the journalist has to continually upgrade their selves with knowledge, so as to be fully armed with information”.

But NEI on its own part has established 20 community coalitions to support 15,000 vulnerable children through, “compassionate communities” of established network and I institution, using a community-based approach, which helps them integrate into the main stream.

These community coalitions chosen from local governments are based on state-driven selection a criteria, which includes 200 demonstration schools made up of public, Isammiya schools and non-formal learning centers. Support teams will track the children’s progress to prevent them from, “falling through the cracks”

. Through this selected institutions, NEI will demonstrate the delivery of basic education, including providing access of orphans and vulnerable children, (OVC) to these services. In addition, the capacity of communities and caregivers to support OVC education and well-being will be strengthened.