UNICEF Partners Pearson to Assist Underprivileged Children

UNICEF and Pearson have announced plans to hold series of programmes over the next year to examine how new technologies, products and businesses can help tackle the major issues confronting the world’s most vulnerable and marginalised children.

The programme tagged, ‘Activate Talks’ which will bring together experts, thoughtleaders and innovators from a range of industries and countries across the world, will examine pertinence for Nigeria, where statistics showed that despite significant increases in the country’s enrolment rates, 40 per cent of children aged six to 11 do not attend primary school.

The Managing Director, Pearson Nigeria, Mr. Muhtar Bakare, said the programme would draw attention to the plight of children who are missing out on the opportunity to progress through education, adding, “new technologies and innovations give us an unprecedented opportunity to bring quality learning solutions to the world’s most vulnerable children. With the right focus, remote communities in Nigeria and across Africa will be important beneficiaries.

By convening development professionals, innovators and businesses at the programme, UNICEF UK and Pearson hope to broker a conversation that will build partnerships and develop solutions that will contribute to the goal of giving the world’s most marginalised children education, which is their right.

The Innovation Specialist at UNICEF Education, Juan Pablo and Vice-President Technology Delivery, Growth Markets, Tom Hall and UNICEF UK Head of Strategy and Innovation, Katherine Crisp agreed that 10 years ago, no one in development imagined they would be using mobile phones to gather real-time information.

According to them, “today UNICEF uses them to report every birth in Nigeria, track educational supplies in Uganda and engage with over 800,000 young people globally via UReport. However, this is just the start. Through our series of ‘Activate Talks’, we want to foster dialogue, explore challenges, share different approaches and spark collaborations with new people. Together we want to build a better future for children.”

Pearson’s Vice-President on Sustainability and Social Innovation, Amanda Gardiner, said: “Globally 58 million children are out of school and 250 million leave without basic skills. These vulnerable children need our help to receive the education they so rightfully deserve to make progress in their lives. We are delighted to be working with UNICEF UK on this ‘Activate Talks’ series. We want to spark innovative solutions to help tackle the challenges that affect the most marginalised children around the world.”

In another development, Pearson has expressed its readiness to ensure that the challenges faced in the country’s education curriculum would be surmounted through quality learning resources.

Speaking about the latest curriculum resources it has made available in Nigeria, Bakare said the resources have been specifically developed to meet the requirements of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) in achieving Universal Basic Education (UBE) curriculum compliance.

He added that the introduction of a new curriculum itself would not improve learning outcomes; instead, superior curriculum resources and teacher support are fundamental to ensuring that students are actually learning in schools and achieving higher rates of literacy and numeracy.

He said the success of Nigeria’s new curriculum would depend on how it is applied by teachers in classrooms across the country. “The teachers need pedagogically sound materials which motivate and engage students in the learning process. As such, Pearson’s resources bring together international expertise in developing instructional resources to support national curricula in several countries within Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.”