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The Minister of State Labour and Employment, Professor, Stephen Ocheni, has called for improved youth access to education and vocational studies as a deliberate strategy to check youth’s illiteracy and its antecedent vices, such as moral decadence, juvenile delinquency, cultism and drug abuse.
Ocheni spoke in Abuja at a Reception and Public Lecture with the title “Role of Public Officers in Strategizing for Competitive Development,” organized by the Igala Professors Forum in his honour as well as Prof. Sam Egwu, Independent National Electoral Commission, Resident Electoral Commissioner to Niger State.
According to him “we may focus primarily on Universal Basic Education which is free but we must also put strategies in place to improve access of our youths to secondary, vocational and tertiary education.”
Ocheni insisted that “Education promotes equality and lifts people out of poverty. It teaches children how to become good citizens and not just for a privileged few but for everyone. It is a fundamental human right with particular reference to Girl Child Education at all levels.”
In addition, the Minister of State proposed a 10-year Blueprint to eliminate illiteracy from Igala land and Nigeria at large, saying “We must develop short and medium term template to ensure that no lgala child in the 21st Century is denied access to education.
“Such a denial can lead to a number of undesirable consequences. The most pernicious of which are value erosion and character failure among the youths who are the leaders of tomorrow. The signs of such value erosion and character failure include rise in the incidence of corruption, moral decadence, juvenile delinquency, examination malpractices, cultism and drug abuse.”
Credit: Vanguard
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