To bridge literacy gap in the country, a non-governmental organisation, i-Africa School, has called on stakeholders in the education sector to ramp up efforts to reduce out-of-school children and reduce illiteracy to the barest minimum
Founder, i-Africa School, Modupe Adeyinka-Oni, made the call at the i-Africa School trustees and award ceremony in Makoko, Lagos.
Speaking at the event, Adeyinka-Oni said educators must raise the bar by promoting literacy in an engaging way that 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 us in a collaborative manner.
“Nigeria has some of the world’s highest number of illiterate and uneducated people. That is not only unsustainable but a recipe for disaster. This is the first edition of the awards but it doesn’t end there. We will be back next year. At the edulab, we are raising a generation of independent, confident and fast thinkers.
“We instill in them the conviction to be Africans in a genuine way. We are not Europeans. We do not copy their styles. We want to raise a generation of authentic and confident African children. We are also in collaboration with some companies in Finland and we are domesticating math 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 them to build on the success of the programme.
