The file photo shows students playing soccer at the China-Assisted Model Primary School in Abuja, Nigeria, July 6, 2018. (Xinhua/Zhang Baoping)
Only 36 percent of Nigerian children receive Early Childhood Education, says an official of the United Nations Children's Fund who also calls for the scaling up of the attendance rate for children in Africa's most populous country.
ABUJA, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Only about one in three children in Nigeria, or 36 percent of the children, receive Early Childhood Education (ECE), an official of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday, calling for the scaling up of the attendance rate in Africa's most populous country.
Yetunde Oluwatosin, a UNICEF education specialist based in Nigeria, told reporters at a two-day forum in the northwestern state of Sokoto that the percentage of early childhood learning in the country was "worrisome", with official data showing large inequalities between the poorest and richest children. The ECE's attendance rate for the poorest children stood at 8 percent, while that for the richest, 87 percent.
"In Nigeria, only one in three children, or 36 percent attend ECE, but at least 10 million children are not enrolled," Oluwatosin said.
The UNICEF official noted that early childhood was a critical period that any country must pay attention to, with the mindset that doing so would improve the economic outcome of the child. That period must be consciously built to contribute to the child's early transformation, she said.
"Research has shown that children who attend ECE perform better in the academy and have greater earning potential as they grow over the years," the education specialist said.
Oluwatosin identified the lack of trained teachers, distance to school, and inappropriate curriculum, among others, as barriers limiting the growth of ECE in Nigeria.
"We also need to strengthen the roles of parents as the first educator of the child, provide adequate funding for pre-primary education, build the capacity of teachers and provide adequate curriculum for ECE," she said. ■
