Group: We’re working towards reducing the number of out-of-school children by 70 percent

The Core Working Group (CWG) of the national economic council (NEC) says efforts are in place to ramp up the human capital development (HCD) indices of the country.

Yosola Akinbi, coordinator of the CWG, said the NEC will, in conjunction with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), engage the north-central and north-east geo-political zones in that regard.

Akinbi said the move has become imperative given Nigeria’s rank on the HCD indicators when compared to other countries.

She said the group is working towards cutting down the number of out-of-school children by at least 70 percent.

The World Bank had ranked Nigeria 152 out of 157 on its Human Capital Index released in 2018.

The coordinator said “the Nigerian government recognizes the critical role that HCD plays in driving sustained economic growth, boosting productivity and reducing poverty”, hence the need to invest in people.

She added that Nigeria would not be an exception in meeting the 2030 deadline to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Akinbi said: “Since it was set up, the HCD drivers had emphasised three thematic areas and six outcome areas as the fulcrum of HCD growth in the country. They include healthcare and nutrition, education and the labour force.

“These choices are deliberate. They would each respectively provide equitable access to decent healthcare to every Nigerian, a quality, inclusive and functional education system and empower the nation’s youth with the capacity and skills to create or seek employment anywhere.

“However, all the various aspirations would eventually align with the national vision of improving nutrition and reducing childhood stunting by half from 44% to 22% by 2030 reducing under 5 mortality by half and also reducing maternal mortality by half as well, all under the health and nutrition thematic objective.

“Under education the objective is to double school enrolment, double girl-child enrolment as well as double secondary school completion from 42% to 80% by 2030. The cumulative effect of this is to drop the number of out of school children by at least 70% while raising the number of those who obtain good grades in reading and mathematics substantially.

“The last thematic outcome is expectedly the result of the first two. By this the CWG envisions that the rate of youth employment would have risen from 23% to 46% and the female labour force would have doubled from 21% to 41%.

“Once vigorously pursued and meticulously calibrated between the federal and subnational governments and down to the local government structures, it is expected that the nation would have produced 24 million healthy educated and employable people by 2030.

“The target of the year 2030 is also deliberate, the coordinator of the CWG explained because it corresponds with the year in which all global development aspirations would terminate. Nigeria wouldn’t be an exception.

“It is with this ambition that the Core Working Group has developed State Level Engagement Strategies to ensure ownership and the buy-in of all States of the Federation in the HCD agenda.

“State Focal persons who have been attending these regional engagements are expected to further the HCD agenda by organising their own activities at level to sensitize their people and ensure that the messages and mandates of the HCD plan deep-dives into the grassroots and is internalised and domesticated.”