14million out-of-school children and the looming disaster

AT the presentation, last Thursday, of a book, The Man, The General, The President, written in commemoration of his 84th birthday, former President Olusegun Obasanjo brought to the fore the dire strait in which the country is with respect to the growing army of out-of-school children.

Obasanjo had said, “We are not where God has positioned us to be as a country. Education must be one of the main pillars of getting Nigeria to where it should be and for the over 14 million Nigerian children that are now out of school, we must find a way of getting them into school.”

It is both galling and gnawing to realise that rather than reducing, the number of out-of-school children in the country is rising. Fourteen million Nigerian children who ought to be in school are out of school? That is preposterous. This is more so when it is realised that children under 15 years of age constitute about 45 per cent of the country’s population and the out-of-school kids are not being engaged in any valuable venture. They are street kids, allowed to waste away their lives and make a mess of the potentialities of the nation. The 14million Nigerian children out of school will, in a few years, translate to 14 million Nigerians who will grow up with no form of marketable skills. It means 14million youths without any prospect of any worthwhile employment. It means 14million potential bomb throwers, bandits, armed robbers, kidnappers, pipeline vandals, drug traffickers, human traffickers and prostitutes. It means 14million Nigerians who will be a pain in the neck of their compatriots and a bulwark to their country’s development.

Unfortunately though, as worrisome as this appears, the authorities in charge seem unmoved. If they were they would have put in place measures which would not only have stemmed the terrible tide but would have also reversed the troublesome trend. If those in charge had shown concern and had applied their hearts to the issue, the number would not have climbed from the 6.4 million it was in 2000 to its present level. The stark reality is that if nothing is done, the number will continue to rise and there may come a time when there would be more Nigerian children out of school than there are in school. I shudder to ponder on what that portends for the nation.

According to UNICEF, 40 per cent of Nigerian children in the North aged between six and 11, especially girls, do not attend any primary school. In the South-East, the number of boys shunning school is also alarmingly on the increase. Dropout rate in primary schools across the country is put at 30 per cent, while only 54 per cent transit to Junior Secondary Schools.

I think the question that should agitate the minds of policy makers and all well meaning nationals of the country is that despite the obvious advantages education confers on the educated, why is the idea of enrolling their children in schools still repugnant to some parents? Why is it that in spite of the Universal Basic Education programme of the government, school enrolment appears to be on a downward slide? If education is free up to the Junior Secondary Class Three, as we have been told repeatedly by federal and state governments, why are parents withdrawing their children from schools?

Why is it that while the enrolment figure in primary and secondary schools is nose diving, the number of children engaged in child labour is on the rise? A survey of any Nigerian street will reveal a daily increase in the number of young children taking to street trading, hawking ‘pure water’, kola nuts, sweets and biscuits or serving as motor boys and food sellers’ maids. Why is it that parents are more comfortable giving out their teenage daughters in marriage than giving them education? Are the schools meeting the expectations of the parents and pupils? Are the facilities good enough? Are the schools factoring in tribal and religious elements into the learning system?

Experts have come up with many factors; social, religious, tribal and economic, as being responsible for the preference of some parents to keep their children out of school but the Nigerian constitution has made the responsibility of educating every Nigerian child that of the government.

Section 18 (1) of the 1999 Constitution states, “Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.”

Section 18 (3) states that “Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy; and to this end government shall as and when practicable provide (a) free, compulsory and universal primary education; (b) free secondary education; (c) free university education.”

So, the government is liable for every child that is out of school because it has the constitutional responsibility to ensure the education of all Nigerian children. The rising number of the nation’s out of school children is a failure on the part of the government at all levels. The government should do all in its power to ensure that all Nigerian children are enrolled in schools. This is not just because it is a constitutional matter but especially because the continued existence of the country may well depend on it.

It has been argued that unemployment and poverty gave rise to the insurgency and banditry in the North, the rising armed robbery cases in the South-West and the kidnapping in the South-East but unless the syndrome of out-of-school children is fought with resolve and reversed, the current security challenges confronting the country would be a child’s play compared with what may happen in the future.

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