First Lady Lagos Charges Parents on Access to Education for Children

First Lady Lagos Charges Parents on Access to Education for Children

The First Lady of Lagos State, Mrs. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, has charged parents and government to continue to work hard to ensure that children have access to education and a top-notch learning process.

Her call was in line with the International Literacy Day Celebration (ILD) in Yaba area of the state, which was put together by the Street Child Care and Welfare Initiative.

With the theme, “Talk and Spelling Bee Competition” and tagged, “Kids Do Well,” Sanwo-Olu emphasised that it is another clear affirmation of the genuine commitment of the organiser to truly care for the children.

In her words, “As we know, this year’s theme of the International Literacy Day, ‘Literacy For a Human-centred Recovery: Narrowing the Digital Divide,’ was conceived in view of the challenges thrown up by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the unprecedented disruption of learning of children, young people, and adults.

“According to the United Nations, the global crisis caused by the pandemic has been established to have magnified the pre-existing inequalities in access to meaningful literacy learning opportunities, disproportionately affecting 773 million non-literate young people and adults.”

The findings of the international body, she cited, further revealed that youth and adult literacy were absent in many initial national response plans while numerous literacy programmes have been forced to halt their usual modes of operation.

She recalled that in Lagos State during the heat of the pandemic, several initiatives were put in place to ensure that students and pupils at home have access to various educational contents on radio, television, and the new media to enhance access to educational contents.

With ILD exploring how literacy can contribute to building a solid foundation for a human-centered recovery, there is a special focus on the interplay of literacy and digital skills required by non-literate youth and adults.

For the first lady, “We must continue to build conversations around leveraging technology to improve the teaching and learning process”, highlighting how important and critical it is to protect and secure the future of the children and young people.

“Let me begin by commending and appreciating the Street Child Care and Welfare Initiative for electing to pursue a worthy cause of helping as many children as possible to live better lives and grow to become not just responsible adults, but most importantly, fulfill their dreams and aspirations in life,” she applauded.

Now, te President and Project Director, Street Child Welfare Initiative, Comfort Ali expressed that the spelling competition focuses on pupils in public primary schools and also underserved communities. We are exposing them to a spelling competition as we did in a book club.

When it comes to literacy, most children can’t read. And the easiest place we felt we could start is primary school. We read with them and teach them proper reading culture so they continue in that line and eventually boost their academic abilities. We want to give children that extra push. We are inspiring them to read wide beyond textbooks.

This is the maiden edition. We will do it annually to celebrate the International Literacy Day. This is our own part of supporting the ILD 2021 and promoting the SDG 4.

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