By Giwa SHILE
The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday said that quality education was key to reducing extreme poverty in the country.
Speaking at the 60th anniversary of Grange School in Ikeja, Lagos, the vice president said that education reduces inequality in the society and had a connection with a growing environment.
“Education erases poverty by almost 60 per cent in a community. Education also increases earnings by 10 per cent.
“Education reduces nation’s inequality. Education make you have less children, that’s lesser population which makes it easy to manage and plan the economy.
“To eradicate poverty, we equip the young people with education. This is to develop the kind of people to take on the challenges of the 21st century,” Osinbajo said.
According to the vice president, the country has about nine million out of school children, most of them in the poorest parts of the country.
He said that the federal government has embarked on a programme to increase enrollment in schools and reduce cases of out of school children.
Osinbajo said government would also expand it’s school feeding programme to more schools, adding that feeding increases learning ability.
“The question is for whom do we plan. It is for the Nigerian child as every child counts. We are dedicated to reach every child especially the out of school children.
“We need to educate the Nigerian Child regardless of where they are from because the whole work of changing the educational phase in Nigeria is an ongoing one,” Osinbajo said.
The Headmaster of the school, Mr Guy Cassarchis, in his remarks, said every school had its history adding that Grange School understood the importance of quality education.
He said that students of Grange School were taught to be role models and mentors who would be capable of facing whatever challenge after school.
Earlier, Chairman of the school governing board, Mr Dayo Lawuyi, , said that the school owed its impressive academic accomplishment to its dedicated teachers, intelligent students and adequate support of stakeholders.
