Nigeria must invest heavily on teachers to achieve SDGs 2030 — UNICEF

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reiterated the need for more investment in teachers, both in time and financial resources, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

UNICEF’s Education Manager, Mrs Manar Ahmed, said this during a presentation on: Scaling Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in Nigeria, in Kano on Friday.

The event, which was a two-day Media Dialogue on SDGs, was aimed at promoting, protecting, advocating and collaborating with stakeholders for the realisation of childrens’ rights in the country.

Ahmed said that, tackling teachers’ training was not enough, but also ensuring action plans for improving teaching and learning under the right environment.

According to her, Nigeria is not lacking the right policy but the country’s staggering learning outcome  is one of the lowest globally.

“In sub Saharan Africa, 87 per cent of children are in learning poverty as they do not have basic literacy by age 10.

“Goal four of the SDGs is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education that promotes lifelong learning and, all children by age 10, must know how to read and solve numeracy.

“It is not that Nigeria lacks the right policy but Nigeria is facing staggering crisis with learning outcomes being one of the lowest.

“So, 70 per cent of the children in school are not achieving basic foundational skills,” she said.

She added that 27 per cent of teaching staff in Nigeria were unqualified, as qualified teachers were in short supply, noting that there was the need to learn to read in order to read to learn, to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

“We need to do more in structural approach of learning, community engagement in ensuring accountability.

“Structural approach is best for training of teachers, so on-the-job training as well as creating the right environment is important,” she said.

She, therefore, commended the country for her role in making huge change since 2017 when the national assessment of learning outcomes was carried out.