Women Empowerment: Lawan advocates quality education for Girl-child as best model

Nigeria’s Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, harps on prioritising girl-child education as the best model of women empowerment, stressing that such path is considered important by any society desirous of genuine development

 

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has harped on the need to prioritise the education of the girl child, stressing that education is the best form of empowerment in life.

Lawan was speaking on Thursday at the 7th Edition of an Annual Quiz Competition among Secondary Schools across the six geo-political zones organised by the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies ( NILDS). At the event, held at the Senate Wing of the National Assembly in Abuja, the Yobe lawmaker noted that women’s best form of empowerment is educating the girl child. An educated girl child, he added, will hardly be vulnerable at the stage of womanhood for the type of women empowerment programmes being carried out in the country today at various levels.

“If you want to empower women, you don’t do that only through organising city women and say they must have this and that, go back to the basis by giving the girl child quality education. They don’t have to beg anybody to get there once they are educated; they don’t have to beg anybody saying give us this percentage or that of whatever position.

Education of the girl child is very important for any society or country that wants to be genuinely developed. I’m very happy that girls are well-represented in competing schools today. A combination of competitors from the seven schools across the six geo-political zones and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for the final stage of the NILDS Quiz Competition today symbolises a new Nigeria where both men and women can make their contributions to national development.

NILDS should partner with relevant agencies for internalising content of this competition into the National Curriculum on the template of Civic Education or any other relevant subject,” he said.

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Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, in his remarks, said the content of the annual national quiz competition of NILDS, which dwells on the practice of democracy and, in particular, the role of the legislature, should be amplified further through television programmes for children.

The NBC Chief, who was represented by Clementine Usman Wamba, an Assistant Director in the agency, said thematic channels for packaging such programmes are available.

“What NILDS is doing and aiming to achieve with the annual National Quiz Competition among senior secondary schools across the country on practice of democracy should not stop at the various venues but transformed them into content that can be aired on television through any of the thematic channels,” she said.

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Earlier in his welcome address, the Director-General of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Professor Abubakar Olanrewaju Sulaiman, said the Nigerian Legislature is undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood arms of government, a narrative of which is being changed with the instrumentality of the quiz competition.

“To this effect, NILDS is further encouraged to collaborate with research institutes and relevant agencies of government to develop curriculum on Legislative and Democratic studies for inclusion in the civic Education, Social Studies, Government and other curricular for basic as well as Senior Secondary Education to enrich their contents and bridge the knowledge gaps in the legislature,” he said.

Top Faith International Secondary School, Mkpatak, Akwa Ibom State, came tops in the competition, while Model Secondary School, Akure, Ondo State, were the first runners-up. The students from Global Kids Academy, Sokoto, Sokoto State, took the third position.