2024 Int’l Day of Education
AdminToday we commemorate the international day of education which is celebrated every 24th of January. The theme for this year is learning for Lasting Peace. This theme is of benefit today considering the many issues and challenges facing many countries all over the world in the aspect of Education.
Education is a basic right of a child which is enshrined in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The convention on the Rights of the Child goes further to mandate countries to provide basic education to every child as part of their basic human right. In 2003, Nigeria adopted the Child Rights Act to domesticate the Convention on the Rights of the Child and is therefore mandated to provide free quality education for all children.
Previous Themes
2019 — “Education: A Key Driver for Inclusion and Empowerment
2020 — ‘The Role of Higher Education in strengthening the rule of law worldwide and in achieving SDG 16 by 2030’.
2021 — ‘Recover and Revitalize Education for the COVID-19 Generation’
2022 — “Changing Course, Transforming Education”
2023 — Investing in People and Prioritizing Education
2024 — Learning for Lasting Peace
What is Nigeria Doing for Education?
Different states in Nigeria have their mandates concerning education in their different states. In Oyo State, the government has managed to make basic education almost free which has drastically reduced the number of out of school children in the state. To be able to achieve learning for lasting peace, the govenment needs to first prioritise education by first allocating resources that is not just on paper but actually accessible to the systems that need them. Nigeria has employed programs such as TETFUND, SUBEB, UBEC, NELFUND etc.
However, beyound providing education in the classroom, more important is education out of the classroom such as extracurricular activities like sports, science and arts related activities, robotics, and club activities which bring people together in the most incredible way. Inter-school, inter-state, cross country competitions foster learning which cannot be achieved within the four walls of the classroom.
Governments need to pay attention to children in the public schools and provide well equipped facilities which they cannot have access to due to cost constraints. Through sports, like chess, swimming, basketball and contact sports, people can see that they are not different in anyway regardless of race, religion, culture or region, they can put aside these differences and foster lasting peace.
What Onelife is Doing for Education in Oyo State
As an organisattion we also take a look at the state of girl child education and the factors that influence the quality of education received in schools in the state. This project aims at providing a comprehensive report on factors affecting the State of Girl Child Education in Oyo State while chronicling various private and government efforts at improving the quality of the girl child education in the state.
The result of this research aims to spotlight problem areas where the government can improve on. Asides this project, Onelife also has an initiative that provides young people with appropriate comprehensive sexuality education using a course curriculm tailored to young people.
This curriculum is many times not part of what should e provided by the counselling department of the school. Most of the time there is no counselling department present in the schools and this gap is what Onelife Initiative tries to address with its project School Connect.
As we commemorate International Day of Education 2023, we call for more support from the Government and other concerned institutions to take measures towards making education free, exciting, by providing basic educational materials, consumable infrastructures, smart equipments and also strengthen the capacity of the teachers to perform more effectively and efficiently.
