By Danzumi Ishaku, Jalingo.
Breaking silence on why Taraba state was selected as a pilot state for the flag off of Better Education Service Delivery For All (BESDA) has been broken by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu.
The minister who yesterday broke the silence during the official flagged off of the programme in Jalingo, the state capital , said the move has become necessary because Taraba state “is one of the state with the highest out of school children in the country ,
The programme which according to the minister, is focused around seventeen key state “in the entire seven states of the Northwest, six states of the northeast and one state each from the remaining geopolitical zones, if well implemented, he believed would take most of the children that were initially out of schools back to the classrooms.
The minister who spoke via the Minister of State for education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba , said the launching of the programme was made possible by President Mohammedu Buhari, whom he said has made education one of his major priority.
Stressing that education is “critical to all National development efforts ” the programme, as made known by him “is structured to prepare our children for responsible citizenship and national development. “
Determined to work round the clock to ensure the programme sees the lights of the day ” no nation ” as stated by him “can rise above it level of education development ” adding that “for any country to develop, it must have a well developed educational system that equips people and prepare them with adequate knowledge that will enable them take competitive advantage of this 21st century economy that is knowledge driven. “
Affirming that “only education offers a child or an adult the opportunity to confront the enemies of poverty, defeat it army and bring about the desired institutional change” all hands as suggested by him, must be on deck to actualize the goals of the programme.
The minister who went ahead to identified the numerous challenges confronting Nigeria education, among which he enumerated as “high illiteracy, infrastructural decay as well as deficits, inadequate numbers of qualified teachers , inadequate infrastructural facilities, resources and poor funding ” said the ministry in collaboration with the federal government will continue to work round the clock to ensure quality education.
Piqued that Nigeria, as at the time of the flagged off has remained the number one of out of school children in sub-sahara Africa, all hands , according to him must be on dect to address it.
He said “for us to adequately address these challenges, we must strengthen the quality of basic education by confronting head on the factors that denied our children assess to basic education. “
The programme, in his word “will result in better lives for all of us, our children primarily ” adding that the “cardinal objective of this programme is to increase equitable assess for our out of school children, improve literacy and strengthen accountability for result at the basic education level. “
