The Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs has distributed about three million copies of MDGs branded free exercise books to indigent pupils across the country.
The distribution of the free exercise books was meant to ease the burden of the benefiting poor families as well as stimulate the interest of the pupils to embrace education and quit the streets.
Speaking at the event, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Mrs. Precious Gbeneol said that government’s untiring efforts in the educational sector was yielding positive results, stressing that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report of 2013 showed that in 2012, primary school attendance ratio was 71.0 per cent which represents 10 per cent improvement in comparison to 2008.
She added that 83.9 percent was in urban area, while 63.4 per cent was in rural area, nothing that secondary school net attendance ratio was about 54. 8 per cent, while rural accounted for 46.2 per cent.
She further stated that grade 6 (six) completion rate was about 87.7 per cent, representing about 5.7 per cent increase compared with the 2004 figure and 12.3 per cent lower than the MDG benchmark. A further breakdown of the figure shows that completion rate was about 81.5 per cent in the urban area and 90.5 cent in the rural area.
Also speaking, the executive secretary, universal basic education commission, (UBEC) Mr. Dikko Abdullahi represented by Mr. Pius Osaghae said the provision of the free exercise books would go a long way in ameliorating the life of the indigent pupils and their parents.
He assured the SSAP-MDGs that UBEC, which is partnering the Office of the Senior Special Assistant on MDGs in the distribution, will ensure that the exercise books are effectively distributed to the intended pupils through the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB platform.
