By Chioma Iruke
African presidents have called for purposeful priorotization of the educational sector in Africa.
Lending their voice to the call, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Togo’s Faure Gnassingbe amongst others, made the plea during the Global Educational Summit in London during the week.
Buhari who stated that education was a starting point for every individual and nation added that “Anybody who miss the opportunity to receive education has missed everything because you cannot succeed outside your educational qualification”.
The Nigerian president thus assured the world of Nigeria’s commitment of ensuring that its citizens get the best education.
“I assure you that Nigerians are hugely aware of the priorities of education and are making necessary input to make sure that their children and wards get the opportunity to have the best of education,” he added.
On his own part, Kagame called for more financial investment in the area of education, noting that “sustained investment in higher education are critical to nurturing specialized knowledge and skills needed to grow our economies and accelerate development”.
“Globally we still need to triple current spending in education to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.
“Indeed much more is required of all of us. Increasing spending efficiency alongside allocating high amounts to education will ensure that all children are better prepared to live a more productive and fulfilled lives,” he added.
Similarly, Gnassingbe, while speaking on the importance of education within the early years of a child, further noted that inequality was a major hindrance to the advancement of education.
“I do think that early years education is an important one because actually right now it is the missing element in our systems it is one that has been left aside in our education system.
“25% of our budget is set aside for education but I’d like to say that of that, very little is set aside for preschool year now of course we have been faced with the pandemic the sector hat has been hardest hit indeed has been the educational sector. Children has been unable to go to school for some time now.
“This is important to bear in mind because one reason why we are faced with inequalities and we all say this shouldn’t happen is because we have children from wealthy families who are ready to do well in School whereas, children coming from poor areas don’t have that.
“These inequalities start from a very young age preschool years and so we see that its a great divide a great gap which only widens throughout their schooling years and throughout their lives. And so we have find solution and I think what we need to do is to promote inclusion in education in order words in poorer regions we have to offer opportunities so that these families can put their children into school.
“If we do that we will also be dealing with girl’s education because I have spoken about inequality based on income but there is also gender inequality and I think that we could also improve the chances of young girls’ education,” he said.
Other African leaders who spoke were Lazarus Chakwera (Malawi), Nana Akufo Ado (Ghana), and Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya). The event also witnessed leaders from all over the world making pledges and commitments to improving education around the world and in their various countries.
