The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, has stated that the administration of President Bola Tinubu remains committed to the development of non-formal education as part of efforts aimed at job creation and youth empowerment across the country.
The minister spoke during a special plenary session moderated by the Duke of Edinburgh, His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, during the Education World Forum (EWF) held recently in London, United Kingdom.
According to the minister, the President Tinubu-led federal government through the ministry of education is relentless in its push to empower the out-of-school children through informal education while also empowering those undergoing formal education with entrepreneurial skills which is part of non-formal education
Other panelists include the Minister of Education, Ontario, Canada, Paul Calandra, Secretary of State for Education, Rio Grande de Sul, Brazil, Raquel Teixeira and International Youth Representative, DofE International Award Foundation, Andrea Chakma
The special session discussed the importance of non-formal education and soft skills and availed the three participating education ministers an opportunity to talk about the importance of non-formal education, and soft skills, as well as understand how industry can also be involved, to enable the wellbeing of individuals, and basic employability skills.
During his presentation, Dr Alausa explained Nigerian government’s wide array of informal education programmes targeting out-of-school youths, adults, and vulnerable populations.
In a statement by the Special Adviser Media and Communications to the Minister, Ikharo Attah, these initiatives are designed to bridge literacy gaps, provide vocational and technical skills, and integrate less privileged or marginalized groups into the economy
“What we are doing in Nigeria is because we have a lot of out of school children, we have to find a way that we can quickly get them a kind of non-formal education,” So, we’ve created a separate curriculum for them called accelerated basic education program which ties them to what they should be learning in school.
“We’ve heavily focused on technical vocational education, which is still a form of formal education but in a non-formal setting to give people that have gone to school other skill sets that they can use to benefit themselves, benefit their community. We have also now infused what we call entrepreneurial training in these kids. Whatever level of courses they are studying, they go through our entrepreneurship, innovation business certification to equip them with the skills they need to be able to function and do things differently.” The Minister added
Amongst the programmes highlighted by the minister is the TVET initiative which is a flagship programme by the federal ministry of education offering tuition-free vocational training, stipends, and start-up support to close skills gaps and boost entrepreneurship and the national policy on skills development which promotes flexible learning pathways by integrating hands-on training, digital literacy, and vocational skills for out-of-school youths and adults.