NGO launches national post Covid-19 educational response plan

By Vivian Okejeme, Abuja

A non governmental organization, Educational Network Against Covid-19 (ENACOVID), on Wednesday, launched the National Post Covid 19 Educational Response Plan (CERP), in Abuja.

The NGO targets all groups of persons whose fortunes and possibilities of earning decent education may have still been affected by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Ben Onwudinjo, the Executive Director said the NGO is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political and gender sensitive organisation set up to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the education sector.

Speaking to the press, he disclosed that the Presidency, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, who doubled as the Chairman of the Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19, endorsed that the NGO awards tuition scholarships to vulnerable women and youths who obviously were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic at no cost to government.

He stated that “as a pilot scheme, the Minister of State, FCT, Dr. Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu had approved

Memorandum of Understanding for the Educational Network Against Covid-19, screened and released at least 3000 (three thousand) widows, orphans, repented commercial sex workers, victims of domestic violence and youth groups to the NGO for training though at no cost to the government nor to the beneficiaries”.

“With support from members of the University of Nigeria Alumni Association, Abuja branch, we trained them on different skills which include catering craft, cosmetology, tailoring, driving mechanics, computer coding programming, solar power energy CCTV installation and fashion/interior decoration practicals lectures.

Onwudinjo hinted that successful ones shall write the Federal Ministry of Education organised NABTEB modular examinations by the first quarter of 2023, adding that the entire list of all beneficiaries are available on request, due to privacy issues.

According to the Executive Director of ENACOVID, the NGO also prepared beneficiaries to sit for the Nov/Dec. 2022 West African Examinations Council and NABTEB exams where it paid their tuition and equally paid their examination fees.

“If you come to the exam center inside Jabi Primary School with Center number 5020606, you can see at least a hundred of them writing the exams with joy while we have almost 2900 of them awaiting to be registered to enable them write the Jan/Feb 2023 WAEC external exams” Dr Onwudinjo said.

However, to register the remaining 2,900 candidates for the Jan/Feb WAEC 2023 exam, Onwudinjo said the NGO needs public support to the tune of Fifty two Million, Two Hundred Thousand Naira (N52,200,000.00) since WAEC charges N18,000 per candidate.

He therefore appealed to the public to help call on international communities, NGOs, faith-based organisations, philanthropists, etc to support the NGO to enable it pay the WAEC fees of the beneficiaries between now and December 2022.