Juliet Egbo takes on African stage, discusses her planned One-Child-One-Skill Education at the N’Assembly

In line with the Transforming Education Summit at the U.N. General Assembly last September, the All Progressive Congress (APC) House of Representatives candidate for Enugu North and South Federal Constituency, Hon Mrs. Juliet Egbo yesterday addressed critical education stakeholders in Africa during a virtual conference on education systems transformation.

The conference, “Foresight Africa Education and Skills” hosted by TimeAfrica and Education Afrique Foundation, discussed systemic issues, strategy focusing on systems transformation for holistic education, skill prioritization and collaboration in bringing research to practice across education ecosystems in Africa.

The conference explored some of the dichotomies that often characterize education systems —foundational versus holistic learning, Africa versus global focus, and policy versus practice—and examine the critical role of African lawmakers in legislating on viable education modules to meet the modern demands.

The opening and closing sessions which was livestreamed online had viewers around Africa interacting warmly with Mrs. Egbo who was one of the conference resource persons.

Speaking during the virtual conference, Mrs Egbo said African lawmakers have critical role and responsibility to legislate on laws that must give compulsory education and care for every African child.She said though in the past years, Africa has experienced several policy changes in the education sector, but more works need to be more to meeting the fast globalization.

Mrs Egbo explored the concept of innovative pedagogies—”what counts as an innovative pedagogy, what examples we can see around the world, and what role they play in transforming education system in my immediate constituency to enable all children to develop a breadth of skills.”

According to Mrs Egbo, modern education systems must not only equip the next generation with the skills needed to read, write, and count, but to actively solve problem and think creatively in today’s rapidly changing world.

“To help reach Sustainable Development Goal 4, it is essential to transform education systems to meet the needs of today’s learners and deliver a breadth of skills equitably to all children,” she said.

Mrs. Egbo also explained the connections between modern society transformation and core skill driven education, gender-transformative education, family and school collaboration, sincere legislative interventions at all level of education particularly in Nigeria.

Mrs Egbo assured that if voted into the Nigerian National Assembly, she would spearhead legislation on “One-Child-One-Skill Education” driven by Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), that will enable Nigeria to overcome crippling development challenges including climate change, food insecurity, inequality, and poverty.

She promise to be on the forefront of tackling issues that may affect education.”I will works hand in hand with government bodies to ensure our policies dwell more on giving every child one skill,” she assured.

She said apart from Nigeria, millions of population under the age of 25 in sub-Saharan Africa need STEM skills to drive economic transformation and competitiveness.

She said, “young people need these skills to build the resilience to navigate an uncertain future where technological advances will fundamentally alter industries and eliminate about one-half of the jobs today.’

Finally a Medal of Honor was presented to her.

By Chidipeters Okorie