The MD/CEO of NEDC, Mohammed Goni Alkali, said that the North-East Region consists of people with diverse but rich and complimentary socio-cultural and economic heritage and traditions.
He was speaking at the launch of the ASSEP programme held on Saturday at the Government House in Bauchi.
“Over the decades, the geography, landmass, and wide disposal of human settlements (now towns, cities, and villages) presented challenges to effective administration and efficient delivery of social services. As times changed and civilisation evolved, this challenge began to manifest in disparities in development indicators both within the region and between the North-East and other regions of the country,” he added.
The NEDC boss added that, with the obvious limits to the resource level and human capacity of sub-nation governments to drive and achieve desirable levels of human development in the region, the Federal Government of Nigeria conceived and established the North-East Development Commission (NEDC) not merely to rebuild social and physical infrastructure damaged by the devastating insurgency that ravaged much of the region but also to address the root issues that fueled such and lift the region to a level where such will not happen again.”
He also said, Thus, NEDC was set up to coordinate and drive a strategic development agenda with a focus on the near-term and future challenges to and opportunities for development.”
The North-East Stabilisation and Development Master Plan (NERSDMP) developed by the Commission and its diverse partners consists of pillars that support human capital development in the North-East Region, such as the Educated Population and Healthy Citizens Pillars, which cater for both human capital and physical facilities (infrastructure, teaching and learning materials, etc.) and is estimated to cost over N1 trillion.
The Commission has also ploughed other funds into human capital training and retraining programmes that can propel the socio-economic development of the NE Region, highlighting the premium placed on building people and their capacity to make concrete social and economic contributions.
He added that, “But beyond targeting and facilitating the lifting of beneficiaries as a development priority, we envision the people whose capacity we build today as the future custodians of the legacies we create today.”
“Therefore, the Accelerated Senior Secondary Education Programme (ASSEP) we have gathered here to launch today is an intervention focused on addressing a particular challenge in our Region’s education system; it will provide effective support where the capacity of conventional schooling arrangements is limited for our teeming beneficiaries,” he explained.
Mohammed Alkali explained that some of the key statistics and indices about education in the North-East Region are:
Primary Education Completion level of 85% in the NE is among the best in Nigeria, but Secondary School enrolment is a mere 15%, the second worst nationally.
Due to challenges in the post-primary education segment, JAMB UTME applications and admissions into tertiary institutions in 2019 were the lowest for the NE compared to other Regions.
Nationally, the NE has the lowest number of teachers and the highest percentage (55% of those available) without literacy skills.
He also said that the challenges in the post-primary education segment include weak quality indices (infrastructure, personnel, and student disposition) and a wide demand-supply gap driven by economic and cultural factors.
The quality and scale of post-primary education (sound secondary education and high completion rates) are major drivers of human capital development.
According to him, the Accelerated Senior Secondary Education Programme (ASSEP) seeks to boost the post-primary education rating across the NE Region through 3 major objectives: improved enrolment into tertiary institutions, skill development, and elevation of teacher quality.
ASSEP will pay special attention to science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and communication, which foster creativity and critical thinking; they motivate and inspire young people to generate new technologies and ideas to learn from inquiry-based tasks.
The ASSEP Key Delivery Pillar is to raise awareness about after-school possibilities and the potential for diligent students to become successful and prominent contributors to the NE Region and Nigeria.
ASSEP’s main components include quiz competitions; examination coaching (one ASSEP centre in each of the 18 Senatorial Districts will be designated as the “NEDC Centre of Excellence in Senior Secondary Education” to organise and hold regular tutorials, especially for students enrolled as candidates in WAEC, NECO, and JAMB examinations); virtual instructions; and teacher quality upgrade.
“As we embark on this critical mission today, we stand at a vital crossroads in our history that signifies our deep commitment to develop and support the children and youth of the North-East to grow, develop, and compete with the best across the world in various fields, excel, and contribute to the further development of our states, regions, countries, continents, and humanity in the years and decades to come,” he added.
“We are here today for a landmark event in the history of our region, the North-East. As modest as this occasion may be, we recognise that it marks the beginning of an opportunity to uplift the lives and livelihoods of our people and, indeed, their socio-cultural and economic position in years and decades to come,” he concluded.
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