Tinubu tackling out-of-school children menace, says presidential aide

Tinubu tackling out-of-school children menace, says presidential aide

The senior special assistant on student engagements to the president, Sunday Asefon, has assured that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is determined to address the spiraling out-of-school children menace in the country.

Asefon said that President Tinubu views the country’s education sector as a priority hence the need for the necessary steps being taken to ridding Nigeria’s tertiary institution of its inherent challenges.

Asefon gave the assurance on Monday, in Ado Ekiti, at the commencement of a two-day leadership training organised by his office for students’ union leaders in the southwest region, with the theme: ‘Building Responsible Leaders for National Development’.

Asefon asserted that the training was aimed at imbuing the students’ leaders with the right skills to manage frictions they have with the school management for steady, unhindered and progressive school calendars to be attainable.

The Presidential aide added that Tinubu as a student and youth-friendly leader, was determined to hand over power to the youthful generation, saying there was a need for such future leaders to be trained in leadership skills for the nation to have a prosperous and blossoming future.

He said Tinubu remains the most committed leader in Nigerian history in terms of investments in the education system, describing the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) codenamed Students’ Loan as a game changer that will obliterate school dropouts on account of financial incapacitation.

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“President Tinubu promised that he would stop the cases of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) frequent strikes, and he started achieving this by paying their nine months withheld salaries and by getting them off the IPPIS payroll. That had helped in settling their grievances.

“The tenures of former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari were riddled with ASUU strikes. There wasn’t any year when all the unions in the university didn’t go on strike. But President Tinubu has spent one year and three months in office, and no case of national strike has been recorded.

“The NELFUND looked impossible in the beginning, but students from poor backgrounds now have access to the funds in our federal and state tertiary institutions. Let me assure you that the increasing rate of out-of-school children and unrest on our campuses will be eliminated under the present government”, he added

In his submission, the Commissioner for Youth Development in Ekiti State, Mr. Gold Adedayo, described investment in education as the most potent weapon to rid the nation of poverty and criminalities, boasting that Tinubu’s leadership has not failed in this regard.

A former students’ Union Leader at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Mr. Oluwole Moneyin, said dialogue remains the best instrument to be deployed to settle differences on campuses by students, saying there must be a paradigm shift now that the military regime has ceased to exist in Nigeria.

Tinubu tackling out-of-school children menace, says presidential aide