Posted by The European Union (EU) has pledged an additional €5.4 million euros to bolster Northwest educators’ capabilities.
This is in keeping with its stated goal of empowering young people in the region and reducing the large number of youngsters there who are not in school.
At the official inauguration of the €4O million intervention plan on education and youth empowerment in North Western Nigeria under the Global Gateway initiative in Abuja, EU Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen made the announcement.
She revealed that the extra money would be used to provide instructors with the resources they need to help their pupils become knowledgeable problem solvers who can help Nigeria and Africa as a whole overcome the various issues they face.
The EU Commissioner stated, “In fact, this component is supplemented by a €5.4 million euros separate program that we signed today, which is dedicated to teachers for the purpose of aiming to build their resilience and capacity in challenging environments.” We must not forget the importance of investing in teacher training because without them, there would be no education.
Third, we want to equip young people with marketable skills by supporting vocational training and encouraging efforts to alter people’s attitudes and behaviors in order to combat negative social norms and advance the status of women.
Urpilainen continued by saying that the European Union was planning to fund vocational education and training for young people in Nigeria so that they would be better prepared to compete in the job market.
She explained that Nigerian officials collaborated on the development of the ambitious program being unveiled today to guarantee local buy-in and a suitable response to Nigeria’s specific demands. The European Union (EU) is not just focusing on young people with this initiative; it is also putting them in charge. To that end, the EU established the Youth Sounding Board not only in Nigeria but also in many other countries.
“We have to include young people in decision making, we have to create spaces and structures where young people feel that they are visible and they watch this and this is exactly what the European Union is doing,” the author writes.
Urpilainen said that education is the most transformative sector with the ability to change the fortunes of a country, and he mentioned that Nigeria was not only the economic powerhouse on the continent but also the most populous country in Africa.
She elaborated on how the program’s multiple components will work together toward one goal—access to quality education and youth empowerment—by getting kids who aren’t in school off the streets and into classrooms.
According to her, “education is the most transformative sector in which we can invest and the cornerstone for creating resilient societies and finding solutions to the greatest challenges of our time.”
All of these pieces come together in the European Union’s (EU) investment in education and youth development in Nigeria’s Northwestern region. Its eventual home is the northwest region of Nigeria.
“We are establishing a program today to help girls get into and stay in school, expanding educational opportunities for all children who need it. It also involves indirect aid through agricultural methods and various forms of social protection and income generating.
In my opinion, it is crucial that all children in Nigeria get the chance to go to school.
One of the main goals of our program is to increase the prevalence of validated teaching and learning in the schools we focus on. Consequently, it will bolster community and state-level capabilities to provide education and provide child-centered medical care, sexual reproductive health training, and racial and gender equality education.
Umar Namadi, governor of Jigawa State, spoke on behalf of the Northwest states, praising the EU for its assistance in combating the scourge of out-of-school children and pledging to make education a top priority and increase spending in his state.
He stated, “This funding couldn’t have come at a better time; the Northwestern states have the largest population in the country, and we are more at a disadvantage when it comes to education.
“Education is important to all of us, and we have each made the personal and political commitment to invest in it over the next four years.
I can tell you that this assistance, which couldn’t have arrived at a better time, will be put to good use in reviving the educational systems in each of our states. I can promise you that we will make good use of this intervention, and that it will help our country make significant strides forward in terms of education and other facets of social progress.
Tahir Mamman, the minister of education, said that cutting back on education would be disastrous for the country’s economy and safety.
We are gambling with the future of the country if we do not invest in our young people by providing them with the resources they need to succeed. If we don’t provide for them, poverty and insecurity will only worsen.
“We’re moving our attention to kids who aren’t in school and teenage girls who need to be educated and given agency.
It has been stated that “our government is ready to commit 25% of the budget on education, all the President needs according to him are policies that will justify that budget and that is what we are working on.”