By Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
The Gombe office for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) says it has kickstarted the process of introducing primary school pupils to the global goals.
SDGs are being introduced as a new subject for pupils in primary schools across Nigeria. According to the head of Gombe SDGs office, Mr Charles Lawan Maina, the aim was to ensure that the campaign on SDGs goes down to the lower level.
‘We want everybody to be aware of what SDGs is doing so that nobody will be left behind in our activities,’ Mr Charles told Daily Sun in an interview shortly after flagging-off, a workshop his office organized for lecturers from institutions of higher learning in the State.
He said that the workshop was to train some lecturers who would equally impact the knowledge to the targeted education secretaries of local government, headmasters and some selected lesson teachers that will be handling the introduction of this new subject to the pupils.
He explained that ‘the name of this new subject is an introduction to SDGs for pupils in primary 4, 5 and 6.’ He added that the office of the special adviser to the president on SDGs had distributed the books and other instructional materials to states across the country and that the train the trainer workshop was a step towards achieving the goal of carrying primary school pupils along in the 16 years project which started in 2016.
Daily Sun gathered that SDGs office at the national level seats annually to pick specific goals to focus on from the 17 goals, this was said to be occasioned by the economic situation of the country. ‘We cannot pick all goals at once and get the desired result due to our economic situation,” a source at the office said.
According to Mr Charles of the Gombe SDGs office for the year 2020, a set of 7 goals were picked and are being worked on in the State and the country at large. He said that the 7 goals are Fight against hunger, Poverty eradication, Gender Equality, Education, Health for all, Water and Sanitation as well as campaign against open defecation.
‘We have been working to fight hunger and eradicate poverty by purchasing and distributing palliatives to the poor and vulnerable as well as encouraging people to go into farming while kids were being pushed to go to schools. Because when they go to school at least they will grow as better people and would be placed in better places within the society,’ Mr Charles explained.