Nigeria To Increase Primary School Enrolment Rate To 90 Per Cent By 2030

Nigeria is set to increase the enrolment rate of primary schools to 90 per cent from the current 46 per cent by 2030.

This was disclosed in Benin by Yosola Akinbi, the National Coordinator of the Human Capital Development (HCD) project of the National Economic Council.

Akinbi also disclosed that the country also has plans of doubling the enrolment of girls in schools while ensuring Secondary school education completion rate increases from 42 per cent to 80 per cent by 2030.

The Coordinator while speaking at the opening of a two-day South-South Regional conference on human capital development, said the project was born with the aim of enhancing an inclusive and functional education system.

She added that it would also promote equal access to affordable and quality healthcare for every Nigerian.

“We are also looking at reducing the figure of out-of-school children by 70 per cent,’’ she added.

According to Akinbi, the conference which included state governments was organised to ensure the prioritisation of human capital development investments.

She noted that the project focused on areas including health and nutrition, education and workforce participation.

Akinbi stated that the main goal of the project is to achieve 24 million additional healthy under-five-year-old children who will survive and not be stunted by 2030.

Violet Obiokoro, a principal member of the project in Edo State requested improved investments in the development of Nigerians.

Obiokoro, who is the Managing Director of the Edo State Skills Development Agency, noted the State's great investment in human capital development.

“Nigeria has seen first-hand what can happen to its people if we continue to pay lip service to investing in the development of human capital.

“Payment of lip service to human capital development in the past has partly resulted in poorly trained graduates struggling to provide value in the corporate sector.

“It has also seriously impacted on the calibre of people entering into government and private sector organisations,’’ Obiokoro said.

In his remark, Olusoji Adeniyi, the regional consultant of the project in the South-South expressed misconceptions about the meaning of human capital development.

“The first challenge I faced was that people thought that human capital development means training and staff development. This is a complete misconception

“Human capital development begins from the conception of the baby.

"Our quality of life when we come out of that system is dependent on the quality of nutrition of our mothers.

“It is dependent on the health conditions of the mothers and the environment the mother gives birth and also depends on the skills of the midwife or the traditional birth attendant taking the delivery,’’ he said.

Adeniyi noted that a child's good performance is a result of exposure to good health and nutrition.