Nigeria, UNICEF differ on Number of Out-of-School-Children

Fri, Jan 26, 2018 | By publisher


Featured, Health

 

The Nigerian government and the United Nations Children’s Fund disagree on the statistics on the number of country’s out of school children

 

  • Anayo Ezugwu

 

CONTRARY to the claim by Adamu Adamu, minister of education, that out of school children in Nigeria has dropped from 10.5 percent to 8.6 percent in the last three years, statistics from the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF Nigeria, paints a different scenario. Official figures published on the United Nations agency website in August 2017 indicates that Nigeria still has 10.5 million out-of-school children.

According to UNICEF, Nigeria’s population growth has put pressure on the country’s resources, public services and infrastructure. With children under 15 years of age accounting for 45 percent of the 171 million population the burden on education has become overwhelming.

“Primary school enrolment has increased in recent years, but net attendance is only about 70 percent, but Nigeria still has 10.5 million out-of-school children – the world’s highest number. Sixty percent of those children are in northern Nigeria. About 60 percent of out-of-school children are girls.

“Many of those who do enrol drop out early. Low perceptions of the value of education for girls and early marriages are among the reasons. Some northern states have laws requiring education of girls and prohibiting their withdrawal from school. Girls’ primary school attendance has been improving, but this has not been the case for girls from the poorest households.

“Increased enrolment rates have created challenges in ensuring quality education, as re-sources are spread more thinly. It is not rare to see cases where there are 100 pupils for one teacher, or where students learn under trees because of a lack of classrooms. In north-eastern Nigeria, conflict has deprived many children of access to education. Teachers have been killed and schools burned down or closed for security reasons.”

Azuka Menkiti, UNICEF education specialist, said an estimated 18.6 million girls in Nigeria are not in school. She noted that out of the 10.5 million out of school children in Nigeria, over nine million of them are in Qu’ranic education. “Girls in Northern Nigeria are the first to be excluded from education.”

But the minister of education during the flag-off of 2017/2018 National Enrolment Drive in Bauchi State on Friday, January 19, said the figure has dropped to 8.6 million. “When the present President came into power in 2015 UNICEF was telling us that the out of school children in Nigeria was about 10.5 percent, but I want to tell Nigerians that with the effort of this president especially with school feeding programme, it has dropped from 10.5 million to 8.6 million as at last year. The government has put so many programmes in place to encourage our children to have access to schools and I want to commend President Muhammadu Buhari for that,” he said.

Adamu pointed out that the ministry had made it a policy to construct and furnish 7,875 classrooms annually for the next four years. He said the construction commenced from 2015 to accommodate and enrol 2,725,000 pupils as well as recruit additional qualified teachers to carter for the increase in pupils’ enrolment.

According to him, the ministry had earlier introduced the integration of Tsangaya (Qur’anic schools) into modern education system and the introduction of Enrolment Drive Policy to reduce the number of street children through the provision of quality learning. He stressed that the ministry had signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, to enlist children in hard-to-reach areas in the country into the community development services to support community participation to further reduce number of out of school children.

 

–  Jan. 27, 2018 @ 04:00 GMT

 

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