The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has engaged the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) to review the State Education Sector Plans, State Education Strategic Plan (SESP), State Education Sector Operational Plan (SESOP), Local Education Sector Operational Plan (LESOP), Education Sector Performance Assessment Tool (ESPAT), and Annual Education Sector Performance Review (AESPAR) of eight focal states in Nigeria.

Speaking at one of the stakeholders’ fora at UNICEF Conference Hall, Bauchi State, NIEPA-UNICEF Desk Officer, Dr. Sunday Adegbesan said that UNICEF’s engagement with the various state ministries of education was to support them in developing sector plans based on a lot of works that was going on the background with a situation analysis to identify some weakness, some challenges and see how they could be addressed. “The main purpose of the meeting was actually to hold consultations with stakeholders to review plans and see their applicability and produce a final working document for each of the eight states under review”, he said.

Dr. Adegbesan who represented the Acting Director General and Chief Executive Officer of NIEPA Dr. David Shofoyeke further explained that UNICEF in collaboration with NIEPA developed interest in the development of the Education Sector Plan of these states because basic education is one of the components of a child’s welfare and it must be critically looked into to provide the necessary support where necessary. He commended UNICEF for partnering with the various state stakeholders to see that the vision where every citizen in the selected states for review will have the kind of education that will help them survive in this 21st century. He added that the UNICEF-NIEPA collaboration would spur other development partners to help states in Nigeria to develop fresh education sector plans where they do not exist and also, review these plans where they already exist but do not meet up with the standard contemporary requirements.

The Bauchi State UNICEF Focal Officer Mr. Raphael Aiyedipe opined that UNICEF’s assistance was to ensure that the state developed an education sector plan that would be implementable because the focus of the state government was to develop an education system where every child, and citizen would have access to quality and affordable education.

The 2-day inception meeting which was held simultaneously across state capitals of Bauchi, Gombe, Katsina, Yobe, Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Cross Rivers aimed to address emerging issues such as crisis/disaster management, gap analysis, disability education, and framework development. It also had in attendance, MOE UNICEF focal officers, State Education Managers, representatives from SBMC, CSACEFA, Private Schools and resource persons from NIEPA Ondo. The various state UNICEF Education Officers emphasized the importance of education sector plans for quality education delivery, and the lead resource persons highlighted key issues for plan development.