2025: Kaduna Stakeholders Draw Education Work Plan on Youth Health Policy
By: Edirin Robinson
The Kaduna State Ministry of Education along with other stakeholders, have developed a work plan to implement the education component of the Youth Health policy for 2025.
Speaking during a one-day workshop held in Kaduna today, the Director of Planning under the Kaduna State Ministry of Education, Salisu Baba Lawal, stressed that the key role of the Ministry is to coordinate the development of the documents.
According to him, the Ministry will also develop parts of the activities in the work plan while other activities will be developed by the other relevant Agencies under the education sector or other sectors.
Mr Salisu Lawal disclosed that when the health policy was developed, a lot of challenges were discovered in the component which concerns education.
One of the challenges highlighted is the low capacity of parents to know the importance of Adolescent and Young people’s needs, especially on sexual reproductive health.
“So we want to build the capacity of parents, community, traditional and religious leaders and also integrate the curriculum of the health issues into school curriculum.”
He explained that it would increase awareness and build the capacity of teachers, students, and parents for better improvement in their social lives.
In her address, the Team Lead of Hope for Communities and Children (H4CC), Hajiya Hadiza Umar, noted that the work plan is in line with the West and Central African Minister’s Recommendations to the commitments on adolescent reproductive health in schools and out-of-school youths.
“One of the commitments is that there should be a policy on adolescent health, and thankfully, Kaduna State has a policy on adolescent health under the Ministry of Education since 2021.
She, however, said that the education provisions within the health policy have not been implemented; hence, there is a need to bring together stakeholders from different MDAs, CSOs, and other non-state actors to draw an implementation work plan for the policy to be effected in 2025.
“Research has shown that there is poor implementation of the plan, so now, the Ministry of Education has decided to draw out the education provisions within the policy to ensure implementation because before now, the ministry was not working within the provisions of the policy.
“But now the Ministry has decided to draw out its responsibility from that policy and bring together other MDAs that are supposed to support it to be able to deliver effectively and thankfully, the partners have developed a plan with a timeline to ensure full implementation.
“Thankfully, the participants identified activities in line with the provisions within the adolescent health policy document, and the Ministry of Education will ensure that this plan gets into its annual operational plan for 2025 to make sure it is implemented.”
The workshop, with support from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Hope for Communities and Children (H4CC), had representatives from the Ministries of Health and Education, various Agencies, CSOs, and other non-state Actors.
