Attacks on schools responsible for more out-of-school children in Nigeria — UNICEF

As Nigeria joins the rest of Africa to commemorate the Day of the African Child, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has called on the government and other stakeholders to exploit the opportunities offered by digitalisation for learning and development of Nigerian children.

The Country Representative in Nigeria, Cristian Munduate made the call in a statement made available to newsmen in Makurdi on Friday.

Mundate regretted that attacks on schools in recent times have disrupted education and resulted in millions of children to miss out on learning they ought to have acquired if they had been in the classroom. 

She said, “While acknowledging challenges being faced in Nigeria’s education sector,  Nigeria faces many challenges. One of these challenges is access to quality learning which is inhibited by low domestic spending on education resulting in limited school infrastructure and qualified teachers, high levels of poverty and social norms not supportive of education especially for girls.

“These challenges are exacerbated by attacks on schools and abduction of learners. Both have made parents fearful of sending their children to school.

She further said, “The disruption to education by school attacks has meant millions of children have significantly missed out on learning they would have acquired if they had been in the classroom. 

“More than 10 million children are not in school at the primary level. For those in school, the quality of learning is poor; 75 percent of primary school age pupils are unable to read with understanding or solve a simple math problem.”

To bridge the access to quality learning opportunities, Mundate said that UNICEF and the Federal Ministry of Education launched the Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP) in 2022, an online, mobile, and offline digital learning platform powered by Microsoft that enables continuous access to 15,000 curriculum aligned learning and training materials in local languages for learners, teachers and parents.

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