Nigeria’s out-of-school children and youth population jumped to 20.2 million, second highest unschooled children after India and Pakistan

IN Nigeria, bad news comes in cascades. The latest is a depressing report showing that the number of children and youth missing out on schooling has almost doubled. According to data compiled by UNESCO in partnership with the Global Education and Monitoring Report, Nigeria’s out-of-school children and youth population has jumped to 20.2 million. The federal and state governments should take urgent measures to wipe out these odious statistics.

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UNESCO notes that there are 244 million children and youths between the ages of six and 18 worldwide who are still out of school. With its 20.2 million victims, Nigeria has the second highest unschooled children after India; Pakistan has the third highest. This figure nearly doubles the country’s oft-quoted decade-old figures of between 10 million and 13.5 million and long rated to be the highest in the world by the World Bank and other multilateral agencies.

Reasons adduced for the increase by experts include rising insecurity across the country, causing mass displacement; poor funding; rising poverty that forces parents to put children in the labour market and street hawking, and the breakdown in social and family life.

The most critical factor however is visionless governance at the federal, state, and local government levels. Although education is on the Concurrent Legislative List, it is the states and the LGs that have the primary responsibility of driving primary and secondary education. They have failed to take the assignment seriously.

Nigeria has no business sharing this abhorrent pedestal. While India has a population of 1.41 billion and Pakistan 230.28 million as per UN data, Nigeria’s population of 216 million means almost 10 per cent of its people are headed for a lifetime of illiteracy. For a country with a literacy rate of just 62.02 per cent, all efforts should be geared towards achieving mass literacy, not nurturing another generation of illiterates.

“Education,” says the UN, “is the basic building block of every society. It is the single best investment countries can make to build prosperous, healthy, and equitable societies.” Access to quality education has been adopted as a fundamental human right and is the Sustainable Development Goal Number 4.

Successive Nigerian governments recognise its importance; over the years, they have adopted programmes to foster free, compulsory child education, culminating in the National Policy on Education 2004 and passage of the Child Rights Act 2003. This mandates nine years of compulsory schooling for children. Tellingly, some states have failed to domesticate the CRA. Not surprisingly, all are in the North, the region that hosts the largest number of out-of-school children and other dismal human development indices.

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With the backing of the central government, all 36 states should implement measures to educate all children through well-planned mass education programmes to create a knowledge-driven society and economy. According to the UN, those deprived of schooling at an early age “are vulnerable to unemployment, poverty, early marriage, and pregnancy.” It cited factors that fuel drop-out rates to include poverty, gender, disability, family catastrophes, war, and conflict. Redemptive measures should therefore target solving these root causes.

Governors only pay lip service to education. Twenty-six of 36 states failed to provide the matching funds needed to access the N33.6 billion funding provided for rehabilitating basic schools by the Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education Fund between 2015 and 2021.

Nigeria domesticated the UN Convention on the Right of the Child, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of a child by passing the CRA. But the law is not enforced. Child marriages stubbornly persist in the North. Save the Children International reported that 48 per cent of girls in the North were married before age 15, compared to the national average of 44 per cent of girls marrying before age 18.

Securing the country and making it safe for schooling should be a priority. UNICEF reported that 1,436 schoolchildren and 17 teachers were abducted from their schools and 16 others lost their lives in 2020 across the country. Abduction of pupils and teachers has disrupted schooling in Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, Plateau and Taraba states. Some major abductions included the April 2014 kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, 300 pupils snatched in Damasak (both Borno State); 110 pupils in Dapchi, Yobe State; 344 pupils in Kankara, Katsina State; 276 pupils in Jangebe, Zamfara State; 140 students in Chikun, Kaduna State and 102 pupils in Yauri, Kebbi State.

But the out-of-school phenomenon is spreading beyond the North. The South-West region, once a Third World ‘poster boy’ for progressive mass education strides, has fallen sharply behind, doing poorly in school enrolment, external examinations and hosting a growing army of out-of-school children. The region’s governors must sit up.

At the national and sub-national levels, there should be a renewed emphasis on free, compulsory primary and secondary education. Teachers should be trained, motivated and recruited in adequate numbers. Schools should be well-funded and equipped.

The old Western Region consistently spent over 50 per cent of its budget prosecuting its free primary education programme. The defunct Eastern Region similarly devoted substantial funds to education and training. Achieving 100 per cent literacy rate should be a national objective; the country should meet and surpass the literacy rates of other emerging economies like Indonesia 95.66 per cent; Kenya 81.54 per cent; Ghana 79.04 per cent; India 74.37 per cent, and Morocco 73.75 per cent.

Education is the foundation for any country desiring a productive population. Nigeria should take urgent steps, as an army of uneducated youths will become a burden in future if left unattended to.

The 1999 Constitution enjoins the government to ensure equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels. A study at the University of Hong Kong Curriculum Studies Department found that the provision of mass qualitative education played a key role in the transition to industrialisation of the Asian Tigers’ economies. To meet its development aspirations, Nigeria’s governments should immediately pursue policies to eradicate illiteracy at all levels within the shortest possible time.