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Malam Adamu Adamu, Nigeria’s Education Minister.

Stakeholders in the education industry have advocated integration of vocational education in the curriculum of nursery and primary school to enable the child, at its tender age, acquire requisite skill before proceeding to the secondary.

This was among the positions canvassed by the Delta State Civil Society Action Coalition on Education For All (CSACEFA ), a nongovernmental organization, in a meeting held in Asaba to appraise the success of Sustainable Development Goals No. 4, which provides for access to quality, inclusive, quantity educational policy and implementation.

The NGO which identified lack of parental care, dysfunctional vocational policy, lack of qualified instructors and teachers and breakdown of moral values in the society as the causes of falling standard of education in the state, posited that all hands must be on deck to support palliative measures of governments to revitalize already decayed system.

The meeting of stakeholders drawn from representatives of Ministry of Information, Education, State Universal Basic Education, Directorate of Sustainable Development Goals and the media, was organized with focus of ensuing quality, equitable and inclusive education for all Deltans.

While commending the Delta State Government under the leadership of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa for the comprehensive vocational policy education in the form of YAGEB and STEP which provides youth with requisite skills to make them self reliant and employers of labour, the forum however, recommended that the policy should be more holistic and all-inclusive by taking it down to nursery and primary levels.

On the way forward, the stakeholders called for sustained advocacy on free compulsory and quality education in the state, sensitization of policy issues affecting educational implementation, partnership in promoting government programme and facilities that enhances and improve equitable and inclusive education for all, wider stakeholders engagement through the media among others.

According to the Executive Director, Patmon Community Development Centre, Delta State; Mr Monday Ifoghrere, State Coordinator CSAFCEFA Mrs Maryann Ikolo and State Secretary, Mrs Augusta Kenebor, CSAFCEFA was a coalition of 40 education NGOs focuses on advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, consultancy and research on educational policies, among others.

They said the coalition which has membership of over 600 civil society organizations across the 36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, has since its inception created awareness, advocacy and inputting to educational policies and programmes at the local, state, national and international levels.

They vowed to continue to push for a better result of performance on areas of infrastructure development, learning facilities and aid and quality learning and staff, especially at the rural areas