UNICEF sets new rules for Child’s Rights education

Protect Children to Protect The Nigeria-UNICEF

…says lecturer must be knowledgeable in causality analysis to teach child right

By Aminat Aminu

The United Nation Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has affirmed that a nation risks development it it miss out on child right perspective, awareness of child right issues.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines child as a human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.

Similarly, Section 29(4) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) defines a child as any person under the age of 18.

The ideologies behind the promotion and sustenance of human dignity and the enhancement of human development, whilch in the long run affects the development of a nation.

It is against this back drop, that UNICEF has trained lectures from Polytechnics in Nigeria on effective Child Rights reporting, in order to bring about Polytechnic graduates whose reporting of child right issues that would bring about attitudinal changes needed in the implementation of Child right act in Nigeria.

The Legal Rights of a Child as enshrined in Nigerian Laws Chapter IV (Section 33 – 46) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) provides for the fundamental rights of every person including children.

While the Child’s Rights Act (2003) is the law that guarantees the rights of all children in Nigeria, providing for the best interest of a child to be of paramount consideration in all actions. It also provides for a child to be given protection and care necessary for his or her wellbeing.

UNICEF’s Communication Specialist, Geoffrey Njoku, while speaking at a 2-Day UNICEF training, Train the Trainers, TOT, on Child Rights Curriculum for Polytechnic in Kano on Thursday noted that the need to include child right reporting as part of rhe training of mass communication students in the university and polytechnics, as well as the Lecturers who will be taking the course necessitated the training.

“This is like the last of the trainings that we are doing for the Lecturers who will be taking the course because its child right reporting. We have had this in the universities in a couple of years , but now we are doing for the polytechnics .

“We want to empower the Lecturers to be able to teach the course effectively and efficiently, in the sense that they are thoroughly grounded in understanding the course.

“You cannot teach what you don’t know. So we want them to be able to know the course and go ahead to be a able to teach it,” he said.

Njoku noted that the training is to further equip the the Lectures who will be teaching rights curriculum ahead of September, adding that the curriculum for the Child Rights Curriculum project had been in progress in collaboration with the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and the Executive Secretaries (ES) of Polytechnics.

Director of National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, Dr Musa Fatima Garko, earlier in her welcome address, said that children are blessings from God so they need to be loved and guided.

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The NBTE director who was represented by Zainab Suleiman, also stressed that child rights was created to guide the children against abuses.

Speaking on the ToT for Polytechnic lecturers, an independent consultant, Dr Noel Ihebuzor explained that the TOT for lecturers would aide lecturers in ensuring Polytechnics students graduates to become experts in child rights reporting.

Ihebuzor said, ” if child rights perspective is missed, a country has missed it , unless an awareness is made of child rights issues, the country would never go forward.”

He noted that anything that deprives the children the right of Survival, Development, Protection and Participation, SDPP, is a violation of the child’s right and should be protected.

Ihebuzor laments that journalists have failed to prioritize reporting on issues of violations of child’s rights as a matter of primary importance, hence there should be a call to action in the mode of teaching by the Polytechnics’ Lecturers.

” Lecturers should be able to do causality analysis and be able to teach child’s right well to bring about powers of writings by the graduates to attract actions.

“Without proper reporting, these issues remain hidden, denying children the support they desperately need,” he affirmed.

Head, Department of Mass Communication, Nigerian Institute of Journalisn, Dr. Jide Johnson, emphasised that children constitutes half of the developing world population, and also have needs just like adults do.

The question concern therein is whether the children’s needs are being met, either at the local, state or federal level or otherwise.

Johnson noted that children die on a daily basis die from malnutrition and diseases including HIV/AIDS, lack of clean water, inadequate sanitation, violence, effects of drug abuse, among many others which all negates the rights of the child.

He highlighted the rights of children to includes right of protection against any form of harmful exploitation, right to survival and development, contractual right of a child, right of protection against early marriage and betrothal, right against tattoos and skin marks, right against harmful traditional practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Earlier in his remarks, Mallam Musa Isgogo of the NBTE, commended UNICEF for the opportunity given to the Polytechnics lecturers to brush up on what they need to learn in unbundling of Mass Communication in the Polytechnics expecially in child rights reporting.

He assured that Mass Communication curriculum unbundling would comprise of courses on Child Rights so as to groom student who would become advocates of children and women for actions towards effective attitudinal change on Child Rights.