Majority of out-of-school in Nigeria are girls — UBEC boss

Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi has lamented the rate at which the number of girl-children are reducing in schools during the transitional period from the primary to junior secondary school, saying all necessary steps must be taken to address the challenge.

According to him, recent statistics reveal that over 13 million children are out of school in Nigeria and majority of them are girls.

Bobboyi made the disclosure during the northern regional consultative meeting organised by UBEC in collaboration with UNICEF, held in Kano with children and education stakeholders.

He said that the Federal Government was working tirelessly to address the challenges of the transition of the girl-child from primary school to junior secondary school across the region.

He hinted that research had been conducted on the issue and that the regional meeting would fine-tune modalities to addressing the problem.

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Dr Bobboyi said: “The numbers of the junior secondary schools we are having are not yet enough to cater for the school-going age population. We need to ensure that every child has a junior secondary school, at least three kilometres close to where he/she is living. We are in a deficit of about 22,000 junior secondary schools.”

He said a lot of initiatives were in the pipeline to curtail the challenge.

In his remarks, a senior education officer of UNICEF, Mr Michael Banda applauded the commitment of UBEC in demonstrating its will to uplift the standard of education in the state.

“It is our collective responsibility to address this challenge so that the future of our children can be bright,” he said.

Earlier, the acting executive secretary State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Mr Kabiru Ahmad, said the meeting was very timely.

He added that the Kano State government had already implemented free and compulsory primary and secondary education which was geared toward addressing the transition challenge.

The participating states included Kano, Jigawa, Kogi, and Kaduna.