It is said that in Nigeria, about 14 million children are not in school, even though primary education is officially free and compulsory. And though many projects have been made to reduce this frightening figure, it seems Nigeria is nowhere near tackling this issue which poses social and security problems to the whole country. YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE reports.
ON Tuesday, March 10, the President of the Nigerian Senate, Ahmad Lawan, confirmed that the issue of out-of-school children is a big challenge facing the nation, adding that this constitutes a security problem to the country as a whole. He said it is the responsibility of everyone to do whatever it takes to ensure that all out-of-school-children are enrolled in school.
This is just as Senator Adamu Aliero representing Kebbi Central on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) moved a motion on the need for government to ensure all out-of-school-children are enrolled in school, after pointing out the fact that though the Federal Government had made efforts to reduce the menace of street begging through the introduction of the Universal Primary Education in 1976 and Universal Basic Education in 1999, there are still many children on the streets.
The senator who pointed out that the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan embarked on a project of building Almajiri integrated model schools where children in northern Nigeria were enrolled and given both Islamic and Western education, lamented the fact that most of the structures are dilapidated and others are used for other purposes they are not intended to serve.
That the situation of out-of-school-children in Nigeria is a serious one that government should take seriously cannot be overemphasised as the Senate urged the government to come up with ways and means of collaborating with state governments on how to enrol the 14 million out-of-school-children urgently.
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According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the challenge in Nigeria is that one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria despite the fact that primary education is officially free and compulsory. The organization said about 10.5 million of Nigeria’s children aged 5-14 years are not in school; “only 61 per cent of 6-11 year-olds regularly attend primary school and only 35.6 per cent of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education.
“In the north of the country, the picture is even bleaker, with a net attendance rate of 53 per cent. Getting out-of-school children back into education poses a massive challenge. Gender, like geography and poverty, is an important factor in the pattern of educational marginalization. States in the North-East and North-West have female primary net attendance rates of 47.7 per cent and 47.3 per cent, respectively, meaning that more than half of the girls are not in school,” UNICEF said.
It has been said that education deprivation in northern Nigeria is driven by various factors, including economic barriers and socio-cultural norms and practices that discourage attendance informal education, especially for girls.
The organization states further that ensuring educational provision in predominantly rural areas and the impact of insurgency in the North-East present significant challenges, adding that “in north-eastern and north-western states, 29 per cent and 35 per cent of Muslim children, respectively, receive Qur’anic education, which does not include basic skills such as literacy and numeracy and the government considers children attending such schools to be officially out-of-school.
Statistics indicate that in north-eastern Nigeria, 2.8 million children are in need of education-in-emergencies support in three conflict-affected states; Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and in these states, at least 802 schools remain closed and 497 classrooms are listed as destroyed, with another 1,392 damaged but repairable.
With the terrible prognosis, how then can Nigeria get out of this challenge? Many solutions have been proffered by experts and stakeholders even beyond the shores of Nigeria. UNICEF’s panacea for the issue of out-of-school-children is hinged on improved planning and following the provisions of the Sustainable Development Goal on Education (SDG4).
“The aim of UNICEF’s education programme is to support the government in achieving SDG 4 by 2030 through improved planning and by addressing some of the systemic barriers that hinder the implementation of an effective education strategy. Our programme advocates for education to be prioritised and targets children who are least likely to receive an education. The expected outcome of the programme is that all children access and complete quality education, within a safe learning environment, gaining the skills and knowledge for lifelong learning,” UNICEF said in one of its write-ups on reducing the menace of out-of-school-children in Nigeria.
The work, according to UNICEF, will be achieved by creating an enabling environment for education, improving the quality of education, increasing demand for education, and humanitarian assistance.
While it is said that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, especially in the north where religion, culture and displacement of people by insecurity has made the situation worse, the issue of those left behind by the education system is also one that should be considered. The displacement has significantly increased the problem of access to education, especially in Northern Nigeria, where human development is lowest in Nigeria.
Children living with disabilities and those that require specialised training and teaching procedures due to their unique learning needs are usually left out in Nigeria’s educational system, adding to the number of out-of-school-children. Also, children from nomadic groups are not carried along in the education system. According to statistics, despite government interventions, such as the National Nomadic Education Commission (NNEC) over 5.2 million nomadic children are still out-of-school while over seven million students in the Almajiri education system in northern Nigeria are also excluded from quality education.
These groups of children are left out of the education system due to various reasons. Experts highlight factors like policies that separate specific groups and make education inaccessible to them. This refers to exclusive policies that make education difficult for children with disabilities, special needs and nomadic children. This is in contradiction to the provision of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) which is focused on not leaving anyone behind in terms of access to quality education.
Insecurity which leads to displacement of people and poverty are other factors highlighted by experts. Speaking to Nigerian Tribune, Sumbo Ajala, an educationist said education in Nigeria is too expensive and beyond the reach of many people. “Though we are told that education is free in Nigeria, schools still make demands from their students and many parents cannot afford this,” she said.
Experts have asked government to review the educational system to make it more inclusive and make educational policies clearly defined and holistically designed to capture all groups. Also, government is asked to increase funding for schools and create awareness on the need for all children to be in school while lawmakers are urged to make adequate legislation to make this a reality.
“The government needs to identify those excluded from quality education and find a way of bringing them in,” Ajala said.
Will Nigeria be able to tackle the challenge of out-of- school children and meet the 2030 deadline for SDG4? No one can answer this for now.
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