To bridge the literacy gap in the country, a non-governmental organisation, i-Africa School, has called on stakeholders in the education sector to step up measures of tackling the increasing menace of out-of-school children and reducing illiteracy to the barest minimum.

Founder, i-Africa School, Modupe Adeyinka-Oni, who made the call at the school’s trustees and award ceremony in Makoko, Lagos, said educators must raise the bar by promoting literacy in an engaging way, which involves a multisensory programme that allows for inclusivity while reaching out, especially to indigent children.

She said the whole programme was crafted using the Finnish pedagogical style as model.

Adeyinka-Oni noted that Finland is the country with the lowest rate of illiteracy in the world, making it ideal for their models to be studied, domesticated and replicated in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

“I am a consultant to the Taraba State government and we will be doing some things together in January. But I want to call on governments at the state and federal levels to open up more schools for collaboration.

“Nigeria has some of the world’s highest number of illiterates and uneducated people, that is not only unsustainable but a recipe for disaster.

“We instill in them the conviction to be Africans in a genuine way. We want to raise a generation of confident African children. We are also in collaboration with some companies in Finland and we are domesticating mathematics and science for these children,” she said.

Four children from two schools got scholarships in the form of books, tuition and cash awards. Eighteen people also got certificates at the awards ceremony. Some of the visibly elated awardees and their parents thanked i-Africa for the initiative, urging the organisation to build on the success of the programme.