The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has expressed his delight that a young Nigerian, Joy Egbe, was among the 20 finalists of the CommonWealth Talented Youths Awards to be announced on March 16.
Ms Egbe, alongside two other young people from Cameroon and Uganda, are the Africans who are part of the 20 finalists drawn from over 1,000 applications across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe & Canada, and the Pacific.
Speaking at the Commonwealth commemoration event that was held at the Abdulkadir Hall, National Universities Commission (NUC) on Monday, Mr Nwajiuba noted that Ms Egbe was shortlisted under the “Affordable Clean energy category” through the works of the organisation she co-founded, Newdigit.
The minister said: “She (Ms Egbe) trained about 300 people in solar panel technology installation, mentored 5 small businesses and supplied 47 households with low-cost devices that use electrolysis to generate hydrogen gas for cooking and provide electricity.
“However, the annual winner of the Commonwealth Talented Youth Award” will be announced on 16 March, 2022 and I am delighted that a young Nigerian, Joy Egbe was listed amongst two other young people from Cameroon and Uganda to represent the African sub-region.”
“The star prize will be given to the overall best contestant out of the five regional winners that emerge from the twenty contestants representing Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe and Canada who will become the “Commonwealth Young Person of the Year 2022.
“The business initiative will be funded to the tune of 40,000 pounds in two years by the Commonwealth secretariat to mark the Queens’ platinum jubilee in addition to the coveted star prize.”
The theme for this year’s celebration is “Delivering Our Common Future, Innovating, Connecting and Transforming.”
He said the theme surmises how the association of 54 countries that constitute the Commonwealth family creatively transform their common future through collaboration and innovation.
The minister noted that about 60 per cent of the estimated 2.5 billion population of commonwealth nations are young people whose involvement is very significant in the realization and sustainability of the commonwealth’s shared vision to transform the future.
“Whereas talented young people with high potential for global competitiveness are encouraged to undertake fully funded undergraduate and postgraduate studies abroad, the Commonwealth Youth Council was established in 2011 to enable youths to participate in decision-making and national development,” he said.
He said the Commonwealth secretariat through relevant Commonwealth organisations and organs supports national governments including Nigeria to formulate national policies and programmes that will enable the achievement of commonwealth ideals, sustainable development goals and measurement of progress therein.
He added that the education sector is very pertinent in the realisation and promotion of the stated ideals of the commonwealth.
“Accordingly, the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers takes place once every 3 years. The Education Ministers also hold quarterly meetings to promote collaboration and assess milestones,” he said
He added: “Due to the existence of many poor countries with developing Economy as member nations of the commonwealth, the provision of quality education for all, migration to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), access to quality education by all, the provision of free quality basic education for a minimum of the first 9 years of learning and the total elimination of out of children syndrome are recurrent issues.”
Speaking further, Mr Nwajiuba said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has reduced the number of out of school children from 10.1 million in 2019 to 6.9 million in 2020.
He listed innovations employed by the ministry of education to include the Better Education Service Delivery For All, (BESDA), which is being implemented in 17 pilot states and the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment, (AGILE) project.
While BESDA is aimed at increasing equitable access for out-of-school children, improving literacy, and strengthening accountability for results, AGILE is designed to empower adolescent girls who are either out of school or in-school through skill acquisition, financial empowerment and inculcation of other pertinent life skills to enable them to eke a living, remain and complete schooling.
He added that three training manuals on Nomadic education have been developed by the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) and about one hundred nomadic extension agents trained to ensure that the children of nomads combine formal learning with nomadic herding.