IMPLEMENTATION REPORT ON INSTITUTIONALIZING AFLATOUN IN TWO (2) SELECTED SCHOOLS IN EBONYI STATE



INTRODUCTION:  The primary aim of basic Education in Nigeria is to impart a functional literacy and innumeracy that is life long to children. Basic Education is sterile if children who pass through it are unable to demonstrate requisite skills for adaptation and survival in the society.


In Nigeria, the education system, especially the basic level has not been able to accomplish the above task. This has given rise to the public out cry on the falling standard of education. Several agencies (Government and non-government) are making frantic efforts at arresting the situation. UNICEF (Nigeria) in her efforts to reverse the ugly trend in education has over the years assisted state ministry of education and other agencies that are involved in implementing educational activities to implement programmes that will lead to the achievement of educational objectives. One of her several attempts at implanting quality basic education in schools is the introduction of aflatoun programme . Aflatoun as a concept simply means-explorer. The philosophical basis of aflatoun is to impart skills that will enable children explore their environment, in order to find out ways of exploiting resources in their environment for survival.

Alatoun has two components. These are the financial Education component and the social education components.

The financial Education component has to do with children learning the skills involved in financial management. This has to do with learning the skills in income generation, planning and budgeting, and engaging in micro-enterprises.

The social component on the other hand helps children to know their rights and fight for it. It is also aimed at children knowing their responsibilities in the society, e.t.c

The overall aim of aflatoun is to help children remain in school until they complete their education while they are involved in income generation. This will held them break the cycle of poverty. It will also help children learn how to manage their income in later life. This aflatoun programme has become crucial for the Ebonyi people as there are reported cases of children (male and female) being withdrawn from school by their parent and guardians to engage them in quick money making activities (Agada and Nweke 2003) these withdrawn from school children are found hawking in the street of major town in Nigeria (Okeke and Rufai 2003). These children lack the skills in financial management this makes them lavish the little income which they generate from the venture they engage in. therefore with the introduction of aflatous this trend is likely to change.

The two schools where the programme were institutionalized will serve as pilot. It is expected that with the anticipated successes that will be recorded in the schools, the programme will be extended to other schools.

Planned Results
-           Children before completion of basic schools imbibe skills in financial and social education.
-           Drastic reduction in poverty rate in the society.
-           Drastic drops in school dropout rate occasioned by quest to engage in vocational skills centres by pupils.
-           Children act as change agents in the community as a result of their exposure to philosophical bases of aflatoun.

Methodology Employed
In a bid to entrench the aflatoun project in the school and enshrine it in the minds of the pupils, two major strategies were employed.
These were (1) A 1 – day sensitization of 100 pupils each in the two (2) schools.
2.         A 2-day training and imbedding of identified skill in each school for 55 pupils and teachers.
During the training which was highly participatory and democratic, the children were lead by the facilitators to identify themselves skills of interest using democratic process of voting and consensus opinion of the majority group.

ACHIEVEMENTS:
(1)       Children now form groups and engage in micro-enterprise activities in school.
(2)       Parents of children express willingness to support the children. They even  requested that they too should be trained on aflatoun
(3)       Identification of local experts on the various skills identified by the children for constant consultation whenever the need arises.
LESSONS LEARNT
Children and parents drop out of school due to perceived fear that staying in school until completion will not give them the opportunity to become rich and attain self actualization.
CHALLENGES
-           Ability to sustain the interest already developed by parents
-           Ability to over come misconceptions about the programme.
-           Inability of government to play supportive roles in the implementation.
-           Ability to prevent teachers from using the program as an excuse to turn the children into child labourers.
-           Ability to manage fund realized from the project judiciously.

WAY FORWARD
1.         Integrating the mothers’ club members into the main stream of the project implementation
2.         Advocacy by project managers
3.         Monitoring
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