Nigerian Breweries-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund has announced the flag-off of the 2025 Maltina Teacher of the Year competition in an event at the company’s Lagos office on Tuesday, June 24.

Hans Essaadi, managing director and CEO of Nigerian Breweries Plc, represented by Uzodinma Odenigbo, corporate affairs director at Nigerian Breweries speaking at the flag-off event said since the inception of the initiative over a decade ago, 278 teachers have been celebrated and recognised at different levels; with 10 outstanding individuals emerging as national champions.

Besides, he said many of the winners have gone on to accomplish great things and are indeed doing amazing things, not just in their careers, but also in their communities and the lives of the students.

An ambitious government effort to improve the learning environment in Tororo District by supplying desks to public primary schools has sparked fresh concerns among education stakeholders, who say the move has done little to resolve the district's deeper education crisis.

During the 2024/25 financial year, the district rolled out a large-scale distribution of desks, aiming to bridge years of neglect. While many schools now have sufficient furniture, overcrowded classrooms, inadequate infrastructure, and a severe teacher shortage continue to undermine learning outcomes.

At Pomede Primary School, where enrolment stands at 1,421 pupils, dozens of desks sit unused--not because of surplus, but because classroom space remains limited. In some schools, as many as six pupils still squeeze onto a single desk, defeating the purpose of the investment.

Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, was quoted recently to say that Nigeria has a ‘number exceeding 14.8 million’ out-of-school children, a situation ‘compounded’ in his words, by ‘factors such as poverty, insecurity, and cultural barriers.

In this twenty-first century, this is a tragedy and a shame. It is a tragedy for the children whose future is in jeopardy as they can add little value to themselves, and for Nigeria that, unless the situation is addressed, may not maximally benefit from such a significant population of citizens.

It is a shame upon every Nigerian, but especially successive governments that, decades into self-rule, indigenous leaders (as opposed to foreign colonial rulers allow this to happen to their people. A UNESCO report ranks Nigeria 18th among the 20 countries with the most out-of-school children.

Capitalizing on early childhood development (from conception to six years) is significantly useful in producing competent, responsible, patriotic, healthy citizenry, as this age level is the most decisive in social construction. Such a bold move is tantamount to nurturing nursery seedlings to get resilient, fruit-oriented, and unwavering trees, making a dense forest.

Analogically, nurseries are early childhood segments, and trees in the forest represent adults in the community and social strata. Cognizant of this fact, The Ethiopian Herald conducted an exclusive interview with Pediatrician and Deputy CEO, Chief of Programs and Research for the African -Center for Early Childhood Dev’t, Addis Ababa, Meseret Zelalem (MD) to have a professional point of view along this line.

She said, “Parental Coaching Service is the best strategy to come up with meaningful change in early childhood development and every child should get the best out of the framework. Parenting interventions throughout the first three years of life are beneficial for raising parenting techniques and promoting early childhood development in low, middle and high-income settings.

​

Kenya is gearing up for a full digital takeover as Google Kenya now partners with schools and key education stakeholders in efforts to digitize learning fully. According to statistics, Kenya and Africa as a whole will be a critical player in the world market in the next 25 years due to its young population, and therefore, it is important to equip the younger generations, from an early age on the need to embrace technological changes.

Through this programme to be introduced in schools, learners and students will get an opportunity to interact fully with digitized learning where the CBC material, for younger learners, through a partnership with longhorn publishers, will be introduced into the google chrome book, a device that will be used in schools.

Consequently, learners will get an opportunity to interact with others in the world using the same content and thus bring the world closer home. The project is to be rolled out in schools in July in a pilot programme as more schools are onboarded in the third term and early next year.

Kenya is expected to have a new universities funding model in September 2025 to replace the controversial New Higher Education Funding Model (NHEFM) that has been the centre of significant legal battles and policy discussions since its introduction in May 2023.

During the Kenya Association of Technical Training Institutions Principals’ quarterly meeting in May 2025, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba revealed that a government taskforce is revising the NHEFM, tackling concerns such as equity and the accuracy of student assessments.

The NHEFM was unveiled after a recommendation by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform as a replacement of the Differentiated Unit Cost model used to finance higher education and separates placement from automatic public funding. Under this model, all universities accredited by the Commission for University Education, as well as TVET colleges, are eligible for government funding.

Earning a university degree is often considered a sound investment, but obtaining a higher quality degree is even more valuable – a target that has been elusive in many African universities. That is the central theme of the book, Quality in African Higher Education: Development perspectives from selected regions, released by Brill Academic Publishers on 19 May 2025.

With a cast of 25 contributors drawn from Angola, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, the book highlights the value of quality higher education and its relevance to capacity-building through strengthening tertiary institutions.

According to Professor Peter Neema-Abooki, the editor of the book and a research associate at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, the quest for quality higher education in Africa is not a new concept. It dates back to the success of constructing pyramids in Egypt when lofty standards in specifications and measurements were required.

Peer-reviewed local Libyan journals, books and conference proceedings will be included in a Directory of Online Libyan Electronic Journals (DOLJ) in a bid to enhance the quality of scientific publishing in the country and align it with international standards.

According to ministerial regulations, the academic promotion of faculty members, among other things, includes their published research output in journals, books, and their contributions to scientific conferences listed in the directory.

The directory is also one of the tools to implement the country’s 10-year national higher education and scientific research strategy (2024-34) that aims to reform education, teaching and scientific research and to promote their roles in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the production, publication and distribution of digitalised knowledge content in all fields.

A Professor of Physical and Computational Chemistry, Professor Moriam Adeoye, has called on the Federal Government to include private universities in the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) research grant to boost national research output.

This call for TETFund research grant private universities aims to unlock broader academic potential. Speaking at the 6th inaugural lecture of Fountain University, Osogbo, on Thursday, themed “Physical Chemistry: winnowing Deep Truths From profound, Beautiful Nonsense” she stressed that the move will also promote public-private collaboration.

In her presentation, she urged the federal government to support policies that link academic research with industrial needs for practical impacts. According to her, the government should Prioritise consistent investment in scientific research, especially in Physical Chemistry, which is vital for progress in energy, health, environment, and material science.

The Ebonyi Secondary Education Board has announced the release of results for the recently conducted secondary school teachers recruitment exercise. The announcement is contained in a statement by the Executive Chairman of the board, Mrs Lilian Nwankwo, on Friday in Abakaliki.

The statement added that successful candidates were expected to participate in an oral interview scheduled to hold from Monday, June 23 to Friday, July 18, at the SEB Headquarters, along the Town Planning Road, Abakaliki.

The statement listed documents to be presented at the interview to include both originals and photocopies of birth certificates or age declaration/affidavit, certificate of local government of origin and three recent passport-sized photographs on white background.

For the second year, Grooming Endowment Trust (GET), a non-governmental organisation, has continued to support educators through its Teachers Appreciation Programme (TAP). The programme seeks to recognise the dedication and impact of teachers working in underserved communities and provide them with the much-needed financial relief and empowerment.

The support is designed to ease personal and professional challenges, helping teachers focus on their core mandate, which is shaping the future. Operations Lead at GET, Chikezie Ugwu, said the initiative is part of GET’s broader commitment to promote equity and support frontline educators.

Describing teachers as the backbone of society, Ugwu said the scheme is designed to appreciate them for their efforts. He said the gesture aims to strengthen the education sector and uplift those at the heart of learning. After a call for applications, several reviews and interview processes by a qualified panel, 12 teachers across the country were awarded N200,000 each.