The United Nations Childrens’ Fund, UNICEF, the Young African Stars Nigeria, a civil society organisation CSO, in partnership with the Enugu State Univeral Basic Education Board, ENSUBEB, and the Agency for Mass Education, have begun an exercise targeted to enrol over 1000 out-of-school children in four local government areas in Enugu state.
The LGs are Nkanu East, Nkanu West, Udi and Ezeagu – for an early learning system, Nigeria Learning Passport, NLP.
This was disclosed at a one-day workshop on enrollment of out of school children into Nigeria’s Learning Passport, NLP which took place at Girls Secondary School, Ngwo in Udi local government area of the state on Thursday.
The essence of the workshop was to register out-of-school children who did not have the opportunity of formal education to participate in early learning system by using their phones to learn through electronic means, otherwise known as e-learning.
Speaking at the occasion, the UNICEF Desk Officer, Benjamin Ugwuanyi said that they were targeting over 1000 out of school children for the NLP programme.
“We create awareness and enrol out of school children into the Nigeria Learning Passport, NLP which is an e-learning portal,” he said.
Also speaking,, the Programme Director, Enugu State Agency for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education, Mrs Chukwume Suzzy Izuoma, said they were introducing learning passport under UNICEF sponsorship to teach children and adult students on how to use their smart phones to learn.
Izuoma said that many children drop of school and they can make up their deficiency by learning through the e-learning passport.
“We enrol the out of school children to teach them on how to make use of their smart phones in learning, both in school and out of school and to prepare them for exams like WAEC, JAMB and examination bodies using the e-learning passport.
“Many children used to drop out of school. If they drop out, they can go to adult education centres. If they cannot come to class, they can use their phones to learn,” she said pointing out that they learn through an app.
Some of the participants appraised the exercise as worthwhile.
“They taught us how we shall be using our phones to write assignments in schools and to use it to write WAEC, NECO and other exams. If there is nobody around to teach us, we use our phones or computers to do whatever we want to do,” Boniface Somtochukwu Priscal said.
“With the learning passport, we’ll be able to understand more about the education learning process,” another participant, Ntidi Kosisochukwu Jeremiah said.
