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The National Orientation Agency (NOA) has disclosed plans to engage cartoon creators to produce local contents as part of measures to bridge the parenting gap and ensure good value systems.
The agency said plans are also underway to partner with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to make it compulsory for television stations and schools to ensure that 60 percent of the contents are local and about the country.
It also said the agency would engage 37,000 citizen brigades in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions across the country to promote national values.
The agency, while lamenting that the contents currently watched by most children in Nigeria were foreign and alien to Nigeria’s culture, said the measures by the agency will bridge the parenting gap.
The director general of the NOA, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, revealed this in Abuja at a stakeholders’ workshop on parenting programmes in Nigeria supported by Parenting For Life Long Health (PLH) and Global Parenting Initiative, University of Oxford.
Issa-Onilu explained that some parents have left the bulk of their responsibilities to schools.
He said insecurity, economic crisis, poverty, unemployment and deprivation over the years, have also hindered the positive socialization of family members.
The DG while the agency has noticed that there is increasing challenge for the school system to make up for the family lapses, added that many African children grow up in homes with absentee parents and little or no outside contact.
On the steps taken to address the challenges witnessed in families, Issa-Onilu said: “Steps we are currently taking at the NOA with regards to en-placing responsible parenting includes; our current engagements with cartoon creators with a view to ensuring that the cartoons that our children watch going forward, are reflective of our heroes, our culture, our folklore, our diversity, our challenges and our victories.
“We are taking these engagements with cartoon creators with the highest degree of seriousness and commitment because, even though many of you may not have noticed, we are currently raising foreigners in our various homes across Nigeria.
“The cartoon contents that our children spend hours watching and which shape their character and worldview do not project the nuances of our culture and values.
“We have already commenced the process of curating the type of local content that our children should be watching which should be reflective of our national values. We will be partnering with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) which has the regulatory role to play in terms of what content appears on our television.”
He continued: “You will agree with me that even in pre-nursery and early primary schools, the children most times spend their time watching foreign cartoons.
“We are going to work with the regulatory agency to ensure that it becomes compulsory for television stations whether cable or terrestrial and including schools to in the next one year make sure that 60 percent of the content are local and about ourselves.
“Imagine the boy in Ibadan, because of cartoon, he understands the people of New York more than the people of Enugu because he is exposed to them on a daily basis and he does not know anything about the people he lives in the same country with. So, when we begin to talk about ourselves using cartoon and many other platforms, then we will begin to appreciate ourselves and the nation can evolve through that process”.
On the plan to introduce Citizen Brigade to schools, Issa-Onilu said: “The NOA is in the process of establishing Citizens Brigades in Secondary and Primary schools. The plan in the short term, is to establish 1000 per state in the 36 states and the FCT, making 37,000 citizens brigades promoting the contents of the National Values Chatter in the first instance.
“The core purpose of this is to familiarize our children from their formative stage with the promises that Nigeria is making to them and the commitments that they in turn owe to the country and their fellow citizens.
“In this way, we intend to develop children who are values-conscious. Our advocacy on the National Values Chatter emphasises the centrality of responsible parenting. It is intended that the contents of the National Values Chatter which will be launched soon by President Bola Tinubu will form part of our schools curriculum throughout the period of schooling from primary to tertiary level”.
The representative of PLH from Oxford University, Dr. Isang Awah said the study has shown that parents need intervention to raise children better.
She also said the current humanitarian crisis have made parents to be unintentionally cruel to their children.
She said: “Based on our findings, there is need for parents to be supported with interventions.
“I don’t think that any parent gives birth to children and decides to be cruel to their children but security challenges, financial hardship, unemployment, and other issues have made it difficult for parents to raise children. Some of the parents don’t have the skill to do better which is why we need to support them with the knowledge and skill to parent their children”.
