Minister commends UNICEF, says Child Rights Curriculum in Polytechnic will expose rights of children
Concisedaily News – Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said that the new Child Rights Curriculum reporting for Polytechnic will bring a paradigm shift in reporting children and exposing them to the rights to survival, development, protection and participation.
Speaking at a Two-Day Media Training organised by United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) in Enugu, Mohammed commended UNICEF for partnership with the Federal Government of Nigeria and support in ensuring that the Rights of the Nigerian Child is being protected.
He said, the new curriculum and manual for Journalism (Mass Communications) as well as instructors guide had been developed to fill these gaps for Polytechnics.
On the new child rights curriculum, he said, “this will facilitate the movement of all journalists from the present level of Child Rights awareness to a certain degree of knowledge there by bringing about the needed paradigm shift in reporting children and expose them to the rights to survival, development, protection and participation.”
Chief of Field Office, UNICEF in Enugu, Juliet Chiluwe said communicating children’s rights is a challenge, resulting to a broad range of abuses against children emanating from ignorance of what constitutes child’s right.
She said, “This is where the media has a critical role to play, and am proud to say that media remains UNICEF very close ally in ensuring a wider information spread on issues of child rights.”
According to her, the child rights curriculum is great opportunity helps to broaden the scope of knowledge and exposure of the communication students and practitioners of Mass Communication by way of infusion of the Child Rights concerns, which are also topical concerns for human development.
“Let me also use this opportunity to congratulate the Nnamdi Azikiwe University NAU), Awka Anambra State for taking this first step to further mainstream child rights curriculum by electing the CRRC as a general studies course, making it compulsory for in-school mass communicators. It is indeed applaudable, and I urge other partnering Universities and communication institutions to emulate this feat as recorded by NAU in the interest of fostering child rights reportage in Nigeria,” she said.
