Value Re-Orientation: NOA to Establish Citizens' Brigade in Schools

As part of efforts to address the problems affecting Nigerian children and youths, the federal government has mulled an initiative that would promote good value system in schools across the country.

The government also said it was the process of developing a national policy on parenting to help address various societal malaise including insecurity, broken marriages, lack of adherence to our national values and ethics.

Speaking yesterday, at the multistakeholders’ workshop on parenting programmes in Nigeria supported by Parenting For Life Long Health and Global Parenting Initiative, University of Oxford held in Abuja, the Director General, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-onilu, said the agency was in the process of establishing Citizens Brigades in Secondary and Primary schools.

He also said the agency was interfacing with producers of carton films and media organisations to ensure that the content of carton programmes reflect some of our core national values.

"As I speak with you, we have already commenced the process of curating the type of local contents that our children should be watching which should be reflective of our national values.

“In addition, the NOA is in the process of establishing Citizens Brigades in Secondary and Primary schools.

"The plan in the short term, is to establish 1000 per state in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) making 37,000 citizens brigades promoting the contents of the National Values Chatter in the first instance," he said.

The DG explained that the core purpose of the initiative “was to familiarise our children from their formative stage with the promises that Nigeria is making to them and the commitments that they in turn owe to the country and their fellow citizens.

"In this way, we intend to develop children who are values-conscious. Our advocacy on the National Values Chatter emphasises the centrality of responsible parenting.

“It is intended that the contents of the National Values Chatter will form part of our schools’ curriculum throughout the period of schooling from primary to tertiary level.”

Issa-onilu said the NOÀ has decided to re-evaluate its strategies for carrying out its programmes and campaigns, adding that it has identified seven thematic areas of intervention with the acronym CLHEEAN (Crime, Lawlessness, Health, Education, Environment, Abuse and Narcotics).

According to him, the CLHEEAN project is a community centred project deliberately intended to address these challenges with the intent to collaborate closely with local partners and international agencies to initiate impactful solutions that will improve on the quality of parenting.