It bemoaned the slow progress made toward SDG4 by Nigeria and other African nations.
This Wednesday in Abuja at the National Conference on the Learning Crisis in Nigeria, Saadhna Panday-Soobrayan, the Chief of Education for UNICEF Nigeria, made the announcement.
Only 18 nations have met 80% of the SDGs, while Sub-Saharan Africa has only met 50% of its SDG commitment, according to her. Only 60% of Nigerian children participate in organized pre-primary learning, and only 50% of them are developmentally on track in early childhood, which results in delayed primary entry and subpar academic performance.
"Nigeria needs to hire about 195,000 more primary school teachers. Only 59% of junior secondary school teachers and 84% of primary school teachers, respectively, are qualified. In Borno, Kano, Kaduna, and Kebbi States, more than 60% of public JSS classes lack instructional resources. Given its student expenditure, Nigeria might, according to international data, achieve a greater level of learning outcomes, she claimed.
She claimed that a lack of teaching and learning resources and weak pedagogical abilities in Nigeria hampered the quality of instruction.
Also addressing, Cristian Munduate, the UNICEF representative for Nigeria, emphasized the need for focused initiatives to address the learning loss in the nation and across sub-Saharan Africa.
She pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the region's already dire educational situation, with many children losing access to education as a result of school closures.
"As the government outlines its priorities for the education sector in the new Ministerial Strategic Plan, Nigeria has the potential to take advantage of this situation by holding a conference on the learning crisis. The learning crisis that is causing Nigeria's out-of-school issue must be addressed, she said, in the same way that the country has mobilized enormous support for the issue.
Abdulrazaq AbdulRahman, the governor of Kwara State and chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, made the call for a state of emergency in the education sector, focusing on the basic education level, and emphasized the need for immediate action to close the achievement gaps seen at the elementary school level.