Nigeria’s Minister of Education says it has conducted a National Personnel Audit of both public and private schools in Nigeria, which shows that the country has 10,193,918 out-of-school children.
Speaking at a conference in Abuja on Friday, Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, said the audit was part of the 2018/2019 Annual School Census, which was carried out by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), National Population Commission (NPC), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other stakeholders.
Adamu, who was represented by Sonny Echono, Permanent Secretary of the ministry, said the census showed that the most endemic states affected by the out-of-school children were Kano, Akwa Ibom, Katsina,
Kaduna, Taraba, Sokoto, Yobe, Zamfara, Oyo, Benue, Jigawa and Ebonyi states.
The minister added that the Nigerian government had developed four strategic interventions on the out-of-school children, which are Special Education, Boy-Child Education, Girl-Child Education and Almajiri Sensitisation.
He said: “In 2015, conflicting figures of out-of-school children were being given, ranging from 10 to 13 million. We must acknowledge that the issue of data has constituted a stumbling block in terms of planning for the out-of-school children nationwide.
“However, UBEC, the NPC and the NBS worked together towards this common goal of determining the number of children of school age who are not in school. Based on the conducted National Personnel Audit of both public and private schools, Nigeria has out-of-school children population of 10,193,918.
“In the next four years, therefore, we shall concentrate efforts at increasing advocacy and sensitization of stakeholders at all levels, and improving synergy between stakeholders at all levels of basic education delivery”
