Bwari (FCT)- The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on Wednesday promised to train 60, 000 Nigerian women and girls on Information Communication Technology (ICT) to reduce illiteracy in Nigeria.
The training Project Coordinator, Dr Safiya Muhammad, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bwari on the sidelines of the beginning of the three-day ICT training workshop.
She said the training was a pilot project organised by UNESCO in partnership with Procter and Gamble, a private business organisation and the FCT Agency for Mass Education to tackle illiteracy.
“Nigeria is one of the biggest, if not the biggest country in Africa and our illiteracy rate is very high and among the illiterate, there are more women and girls.
“So, Procter and Gamble saw it fit to intervene in the challenges of countries, especially in Nigeria to reduce the illiteracy rate among girls and women because girls and women are those that are more illiterate in Nigeria.
“Among the states of Nigeria, two states were taken as pilot states, that is the FCT and Rivers state and this is taken as pilot hoping that at the end of the target period of three years, we would have given literacy to 60, 000 girls and women, which will drastically reduce the number of illiterates among women and girls within the two states.“
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The project coordinator said the training was to enable women and girls to acquire ICT skills that would boost their chances of becoming literate.
She said, “In a digital age where we engage the use of phones and computers to carry out effective teaching and learning processes, women and girls need to be trained on ICT to encourage learning.“
She observed though Nigeria was rated as one of the biggest countries in Africa, more still needed to be done to find sustainable solutions to tlliteracy among women and girls.
Muhammad said the organisation would hold training sessions in Rivers and FCT to achieve its goal.
Also speaking with NAN, Mrs Elizabeth Gbiang, Desk Officer Literacy by Radio, FCT Agency for Mass Education, said the workshop was key to enlightening women and girls considering their roles in nation building.
According to Gbiang, the training will provide women and girls with the basic knowledge on ways to cope with the challenges of globalisation by being able to carry out electronic transactions on the internet.
“We are talking about women and girls, because gender issues are very crucial in our national development.
“Generally, if you take statistics of population of Nigeria, the females have a considerable percentage of that and we know that when you educate a woman, you educate a nation and that is why are focusing on this critical mass.
“We believe if there is a change from the home, there will be a ripple effect on the children, the whole family and the entire society.
“We are focusing on gender because we know the critical role they play inhome building.“(NAN)
