Poverty, insecurity, suspicion of western education as well as poor quality of education have been identified as the major challenges increasing the rate of out of school children in northern Nigeria.
This formed the centre of discussion during a workshop on digital literacy held at the Arewa House, Kaduna.
The Digital Literacy Program titled ‘Radio Schools’ is a collaboration between Community Aid Connect and the State Agencies for Mass Education (SAMEs) designed to use radio as an alternative learning platform to provide inclusive education for Out of School Children in the North western Nigeria.
Speaking at the event, one of the facilitators, Abdullahi Mustapha from the Ministry of Education, said engaging the local communities to organize and teach the children will help to tackle the issue of out-of-school children in northern Nigeria.
Some of the coordinators of the programme in local government areas said communities are key success factor for the program, hence the continuous engagement with community members.
They said the positive learning outcomes of the program will encourage parents and the wider community to seek the Digital Literacy Program’s continuity and success.
The main goal of the programme is to widen access to Basic Education for Out of School Children in Northwest Nigeria to achieve learning outcomes; increase the number of beneficiaries enrolled; and foster collaboration with the Local Government authorities and the host communities to achieve a robust implementation.