{"id":73682,"date":"2025-08-20T07:10:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=73682"},"modified":"2025-08-20T07:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:10:05","slug":"fct-ubeb-launches-two-week-head-to-head-school-debate-in-abuja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/08\/20\/fct-ubeb-launches-two-week-head-to-head-school-debate-in-abuja\/","title":{"rendered":"FCT-UBEB Launches Two-Week \u2018Head-to-Head School Debate\u2019 in Abuja"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Olokuta Rofiat\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Federal Capital Territory Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-UBEB), has flagged off the 2025 edition of its \u201cHead-to-Head School Debate\u201d reality show, a two-week programme designed to curb out-of-school cases and boost enrolment, especially among girls.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the launch, FCT-UBEB Chairman, Dr. Hassan Suleiman, said the initiative would empower students to identify out-of-school peers, report them to authorities, and drive community outreach on the benefits of free and compulsory education.<\/p>\n<p>He described early education as \u201cthe potent antidote to poverty and insecurity,\u201d stressing the urgency of closing enrolment gaps.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s edition brings together 33 students from 11 schools across the six area councils of the FCT.<\/p>\n<p>Participants will engage in debates, advocacy training, and rural community outreach, highlighting barriers to education while proposing actionable solutions at both grassroots and policy levels.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Jummai Ahmadu, hailed as the \u201cmother of the debate show,\u201d noted that previous editions had already spurred enrolment gains and strengthened community buy-in.<\/p>\n<p>She expressed optimism that trained students would serve as education ambassadors within Abuja and across Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>Organisers said the peer-to-peer approach is central to the programme, as students can better connect with their peers through shared experiences and language.<\/p>\n<p>Official sensitisation efforts will complement their outreach in underserved communities.<\/p>\n<p>The debate series, which opened today at the FCT-UBEB headquarters, runs until August 28, 2025, marking two weeks of youth-led advocacy aimed at closing Nigeria\u2019s education gap.<\/p>\n<p>Observers note the initiative\u2019s significance in three areas: harnessing youth influence for change, prioritising girl-child education, and presenting a scalable model to tackle Nigeria\u2019s out-of-school challenge nationwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Olokuta Rofiat\u00a0 The Federal Capital Territory Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-UBEB), has flagged off the 2025 edition of its \u201cHead-to-Head School Debate\u201d reality show, a two-week programme designed to curb out-of-school cases and boost enrolment, especially among girls. Speaking at the launch, FCT-UBEB Chairman, Dr. Hassan Suleiman, said the initiative would empower students to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":73683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,183,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-73682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","category-education","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73684,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73682\/revisions\/73684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}