The Non-governmental Association for Literacy Support Services (NOGALSS) says it is training its second chance education facilitators to incorporate Gender Based Violence into literacy education.
The National President of NOGALSS, Mr Noah Emmanuel, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday at a Refresher Course for Facilitators of Second Chance Education Project of the Spotlight Initiative.
The programme tagged: “Accelerated Second Chance Education” is funded by the EU and UN with focus on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls.
The programme which would be implemented in pilot states of Adamawa, Ebonyi and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would provide livelihood skills for out-of-school girls and young women facing intersecting marginalisation.
“We are training facilitators for second chance education. The second chance education is an initiative of European Union and United Nations to end violence against women and girls.
“ So, we are providing most of the victims of this nature which are people who are out of school, illiterate people who don’t know their left and right, so we are giving them second chance education.
“And at the same time using the second chance education as a means of ending violence against women and girls.
“At the end of this training, we expect that all the participants will go to the field, open their literacy classes and then begin to teach women and girls who are their learners.
“The centres will start immediately after this training,” he said.
Also, the Spotlight Initiative Focal Person for FCT, Princess Stephanie Osa-Osaghae, said that the training would go a long way in ending all forms of violence against women and girls in the country.
Osa-Osaghae said that a nation with literate people would be free from all forms of violence hence the importance of the training so as to teach the maginalised group on what to know to be able to solve their challenges.
“We are carrying out the facilitators refresher course programme where we incorporated Gender Based Violence component into the literacy education materials and we are teaching it to facilitators to be able to use it in the class.
“ And also be able to see how we can end gender-based violence.
“Spotlight initiative is about ending all forms of violence against women and girls so in doing that we believe that literacy education would go a long way to ending this violence,” she said.
Also, the Deputy Director, Language and Special Education Division of the Basic Education Department, Ministry of Education, Mr Ayotunde Omotomi, said the programme was necessary as it would target children above the primary school age who had never gone to school and those out-of-school.
Omotomi said that it would also enable the disadvantaged individuals have access and re-engage in learning outside the mainstream education to promote inclusiveness as well as provide equity pathway for such social economically disadvantaged groups.
“Education produces knowledge and competence that enhance individual’s writing and reading skills and this will avail him of informed decision for better life and safer society.
“Therefore, there is no appropriate time than now to re-train the facilitators of the second chance education.
“To provide effective learning outcome leading to functional education and by extension meaningful life, the facilitators require up-to-date information to face the reality of the contemporary society.
“Re-training the facilitators is imperative because it forecloses mistakes, errors and mediocrity by renewing outdated or obsolete information picked from previous training thereby improving productivity not only from the facilitators but the learners as well,” he said.
He, therefore, commended UNESCO, NOGALSS and state agencies for mass education for their collaborative effort in ensuring that illiteracy is reduced to the barest minimum in the country. (NAN)