Education officials launch open schooling in bid to reach out to nomads and rural children

EDUCATION officials have announced radical plans to combat illiteracy and school drop-out rates across the country with the introduction of an open schooling programme that will allow out-of-school kids to learn.

Aimed at providing accessible and flexible quality basic education for children and youth across the country, the new scheme was recently launched by Dr Hamid Bobboyi, the executive secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC). Opening the programme in Abuja yesterday, Dr Bobboyi decried the high level of out-of-school children in Nigeria estimated at 10.2m, saying the meeting was called to explore the best way to kick-start the scheme.

Dr Bobboyi revealed that the pilot phase of the programme would be set up in collaboration with the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada, across five states of the federation before the end of the year. He noted a number of Nigerian children were out of school for different reasons ranging from inadequate educational facilities such as classrooms, poverty and ignorance among others.

According to Dr Bobboyi, the innovative open schooling which is an information and communication technology (ICT)-based approach, is being supported by the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada, which has experts in the model. He noted that the system is so flexible to the extent that children of farmers or herders as well as youth in rural communities who could not complete their basic education could enrol and complete their schooling without going to the four walls of the classroom.

Dr Bobboyi said: “We thought we needed to introduce a strategy that can help us meet the needs of the Nigeria children, wherever they are and for whatever reason that they are not going to school. One of those things, which has worked in different parts of the world is the issue of open schooling.

"Innovative open schooling, not the old system where materials are just sent to people, this is IT-based. We now have the kind of facility that can enable you without internet connectivity because the internet is one of the major constraints in this part of the world.

“It widens and broadens opportunities and flexibility such that those children who help their parents in farming, in the afternoon when they return, they have the kind of educational facility that would take care of their needs. Those who are herders, in the morning, they have to go tending their cattle and by the time they come back in the afternoon, they have their own programme."

He added that the committee meeting was looking at the training of teachers to be deployed to various parts of the country where the problem of out-of-school children is endemic, development learning resources and success of the programme. Tony Mays, the Commonwealth of Learning expert explained that open schooling is creating opportunities for children and youth who have not completed school to access alternative ways of learning and completing school without going to conventional schools.

On the success of the programme in rural areas where knowledge of ICT is poor, Mr Mays said one of the things that were developed is a device that would allow access to digital resources without the Internet. He said many countries of the world with the challenge of out-of-school children, including Mozambique and Gambia are implementing the initiative.