The Executive Secretary, National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education, Prof. Simon Ibor Akpama, said they have commenced programmes to help reduce the over 90 million illiterate adult population in the country.
Prof Akpama, who stated this at a workshop on the ‘Conduct and Monitoring Learning Achievements in 36 States and the FCT’, said in reducing the embarrassing number of illiterates, a number of programmes like the Literacy enroute Economic Empowerment Strategy (LEEDS) have been put in place to not just educate but alleviate poverty.
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He said learners are equipped with skills in barbing, fashion design and saloon, and at the end, they are given starter packs to help them establish their own businesses.
“This will reduce poverty and create employment in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s poverty reduction-driven government.”
Speaking on the workshop, the executive secretary said monitoring learning achievements in the non-formal education sub-sector within the 36 states and FCT, constitutes the umbrella focus and the hub around the workshops.
The monitoring programme undertaken by the commission will involve the evaluation of a total of 1,500 learners in each of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) across 60 centres nationwide.
Prof. Akpama said: “Our economy is knowledge-driven hence the urgent need for the utilization of qualitative and quantitative evaluation and assessment tools to ensure NMEC improves on the knowledge and skills our youth and adult learners are equipped with – such as literacy, numeracy, life skills, problem-solving skills and so on. “
He said the programmes must be monitored and evaluated through the rigorous process of a combination of data collection and analysis and assessment to ascertain the extent to which our objectives are being attained.
While speaking, the Director, Monitoring and Evaluation at the commission, Maryam Umar Khalid, said the workshop is to assess post-literacy learners adding that field officers are being trained to gather information on what the learners are learning.
She said they are training 100 participants and 18 of them would be in Kano, 59 for North Central and FCT and 23 for the South South, South West and South East in the first phase which comprises 20 states.
