Nigeria to host 2010 UNESCO meeting

By Our Reporter - 18.03.2008

Nigeria scored a major diplomatic recognition last week when UNESCO’S group of education ministers in nine of the highest populated countries in the world agreed to host the next meeting of the group in Nigeria, Empowered Newswire reports.

As the officials concluded its seventh meeting under the auspices of the UN educational agency, UNESCO last week in Bali, Indonesia, they agreed to converge on Nigeria in year-2010 for the next meeting.

Alongside Nigeria, the world’s nine high population countries known as the E-9 group were Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Pakistan. Together they have more than half of the population of the world.

Led by the Education Minister, Dr. Aja Nwachuckwu, Nigeria had sent a large delegation to the meeting and offered to host the ministers from the 9 countries majority of whose people according to UN are still “plagued by illiteracy.” Two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults live in the E-9 countries.

The E-9 countries met to strategise on how to achieve universal education. Fifteen years ago, in 1993, working with UNESCO, E-9 idea was born to address basic education, teacher training and gender disparities.

In their formal declaration in Bali last week Wednesday, made available on Monday to Empowered Newswire, the E-9 resolved to “welcome and accept the offer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to host our next Ministerial Review Meeting in 2010 and express our gratitude for their generous offer.”

According to the education ministers, in order to develop an action oriented agenda for the E-9 in the next two year ahead of their Nigerian meeting, the E-9 would consolidate the mechanism of South-South cooperation-(a developmental strategy whereby nations of the global south seek to cooperate more with each other since they face similar developmental challenges)- to achieve the goals of E-9.

Equally the E-9 would develop “evidence-based teacher related policies, including teacher education and training, as an integral part of systemic education reform.”

They also agreed to strengthen Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) and ensure that inclusion of comprehensive data on teachers and develop teacher professional standards for quality assurance.