Senior Special Adviser to the Vice President on Economic Matters, Yosola Akinbi, has said that girl-child education remains central to human capital development in Nigeria.
Akinbi, who also doubles as the Coordinator of the Core Working Group on Human Capital Development in Nigeria, stated this when she hosted a media squad on demographic dividends in Abuja.
She said for Nigeria to move forward economically, her focus must be on areas she mentioned were, health and nutrition, labour force and girl-child education.
According to her, “For Nigeria to move forward we must focus on these six critical outcomes, cutting across the three thematic areas of health and nutrition, labour force, education.
“These are the six critical outcomes; talking about under-five mortality rate, malnutrition, adult mortality, expected years of school both primary and secondary school completion, the quality of learning and of course the labour force participation, focusing on the female child.
“One of the critical and most important thing in human capital development is education of the girl-child. So in terms of the six critical outcomes we’ve identified, the girl-child education is paramount for us.
“We know that it is central to everything we need to achieve in terms of human capital development, and so it is part of our focus. Achieving this, sits across different levels and multi-stakeholders. We recognise the media and states as very important components to see how we can accelerate human capital development.”
She further stated that Nigeria must not relent in its push for human capital development, saying that, “It is not an easy task, but we can do it. Collectively we must work towards it. We have certain targets that we have set for ourselves and we need to continue monitoring to make sure that all the stakeholders, that is the states, communities are inputing into that role.
“I want us all to recognise our role and work with partners especially the government, to see how we can achieve human capital development. For me that’s the basic and the most important thing.” (Vanguard)