Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between James Duddridge and Baroness Featherstone(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lynne Featherstone
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his work on the all-party group on global education for all. He goes to the heart of the matter, which is not just the number of children coming into school but the quality of the teaching. The statistics show that in Kwara, for example, only 75 of 19,000 teachers passed a test for nine-year-olds—that gives some idea of the scale of the challenge that we are facing. My hon. Friend will therefore be pleased to know that we have a new teacher development programme supporting over 60,000 teachers.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
In addition to the excellent work that DFID does in education in Nigeria, what more can the Minister do to suggest to the large number of British companies in Nigeria that they should also be getting involved in taking on responsibility in this respect?
Lynne Featherstone
My hon. Friend raises an important point. All UK companies have the opportunity to get involved and engaged. If he knows the names of the companies concerned, I would be only too happy to contact them myself.