To The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
H.E. Muhammadu Buhari GCFR

RE: Invitation letter to formulate Nigeria’s National Statement of Commitment to attend and participate in the Transforming Education Summit scheduled to take place on 19 September 2022 in New York, USA.

Your Excellency,

My name is Azeez Abubakar, a citizen of our country. I am a youth representative of the Global Shapers Community, Restless Development and part of the Action Group for the Transforming Education Summit advocating for education issues around the globe.

I am writing to you to bring to your attention the subject referenced above.

Concerned by the need to improve equitable access to, and completion of quality and inclusive education in Nigeria, I encourage the Nigerian Government to submit Nigeria’s National Statement of Commitment, including: 

• Recognizing the new salary structure, increased allowances and other incentives for Nigerian teachers: there is a need to mitigate challenges such as the bureaucracy, lack of political will, and paucity of funds that have stalled the implementation of this new salary structure. Furthermore, it is crucial that the government ensures continued professional development of teachers by swiftly implementing programs to build their capacity, motivation, and ability to teach leveraging information, communication, and technology tools.
• Taking into consideration that, according to UNICEF Nigeria, one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria: Even though primary education is officially free and compulsory, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa, estimated at 13.2 million children. There is need to ensure that no child is left behind in education, especially girls, and support reintegration for pregnant girls and, more importantly, ensuring the domestication of the National Gender Policy in Education and fund STEAM scholarship programs.
• Ensuring safe schools for children and the continuity of education in zones of conflict: it is important to swiftly translate the outcomes of the 2021 Abuja Conference on the Safe Schools Declaration into actionable plans by creating resilient security and safety measures to keep children safe while they learn in schools.
• Enhancing alternative learning opportunities and making non-formal education accessible to every child in Nigeria: it is imperative to support the leading grassroot organizations in Nigeria that provide life skills learning and remote learning and collaborate on the best ways of implementing such programs so that they can be accessible to every child, and facilitate policies that will formalize these implementations. 

In light of the Our Common Agenda report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Summit presents an opportunity to renew international political commitment to education as a fundamental public good. It will serve to mobilize action, ambition, solidarity, and solutions to recover pandemic-related learning losses, reimagine education for the future, and reignite global efforts to deliver the education-related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Therefore, I am encouraging our Federal Government to announce our National Statement of Commitment to show our pledge in supporting this Summit before the deadline in August.

I encourage the Federal Government through the Honourable Minister of Education (HME), Mallam Adamu Adamu and his ministry to make this Summit an event of utmost importance.

I thank you for your consideration and look forward to seeing Nigeria among the countries who are leading the transformation we need to change the education narrative in Africa.

Thank you Sir, for reading this letter and I hope to hear from you.

Yours Faithfully,

Azeez Abubakar