Kogi State Director of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Patrick Edogbanya, has advised parents to ensure that their children are not out of school.

Edogbanya also advocated for skill acquisition in addition to quality academic education.

Mr. Edogbanya, who stated this while speaking on the 2025 Children’s Day celebration in Lokoja, added that there is a need to give school children a brighter future through quality education and skill acquisition, urging parents to create a peaceful atmosphere for their children’s upbringing.

He said this year’s Children’s Day theme, “Enhancing the Total Well-being of the Child Through Quality Education and Skills Development,” is apt in view of the dire need to invest in the future of children.

He said, “And now in pursuing this goal, the rights of the child are also in focus. And it is the intention of the agency to draw the attention of all and sundry—talking about those in government, corporate organizations, parents, teachers, and even the children themselves—to work together to ensure that these targets of bringing up children, providing quality education, acquiring skills, and behaving the right way are achieved. Most importantly, at the National Orientation Agency, we have what defines us as Nigerians—our values, our cultures—which we are proud of.”

He urged parents to inculcate values into their children for a better society and ensure that they are not out of school, while encouraging them to learn one trade or handwork or another during holidays.

“When we talk about out-of-school children, it’s not as if they weren’t sent to school in the first place, but along the way, we discover that some of them are falling off.

“And then in schools, we also discovered that because we now have private schools all over the place, most people don’t comply with the quality of education that they are supposed to give these children. No orderliness here and there, but we have quite a lot of them that are doing well. So we are calling on those who are not doing well, who are not imparting the right knowledge to children, who are not following the normal standards, to please do so, so that what we have will be in order.

“Then, of course, we talk to our children themselves. Your parents are squeezing and struggling so hard to ensure that you are educated. Now, what are you doing? How are you reciprocating these efforts that parents, government, teachers, and everybody are making? So we call on these children to say thank you. It is not just saying thank you by greeting.

“What we are looking for as Nigerians is for you now to be good Nigerians, to be children who have imbibed values, to be children who are ready to learn, to be children who are excellent in their approach to things. So they must excel in academics; they must excel in the area of skill acquisition.

“These children can be enrolled in one or two places where they can develop their ideas and grow in these areas. By so doing, I think we will have a better society. Let us not continue to trade in blames—‘government did not do this,’ ‘that person did not do that.’ It has always been like that.

There is no time that the government would be able to do everything. So why not catch up with the little that the government has done and add to it so that we can have a better society? I want to thank you for this opportunity.

I want to thank Radio Kogi and encourage them to continue with these programs they are doing to bring up our children,” he stated.