Nigeria is a signatory to several global conventions on how to improve quality of education from basic to tertiary, but effective implementation has frustrated the efforts, writes Our Correspondent.
Putting the record straight
Nigeria is one of the countries in the sub-Sahara region with laudable policies, particularly in the quest for her educational development, but poor implementation has contributed to the slow pace of development in the sector.
Globally, Nigeria is known and identified for having 10.5 million out of school children, but the figure paraded by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), noted that the figure has risen to 13. 2 million children who are not attending schools.
The commission attributed the rise to insurgency, which had ravaged, particularly the North-eastern part of the country.
UNICEF’s perception
While book makers are still dabbling to put the record straight, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said the 11.5 million children were not in schools.
The fund’s Education Specialist Azuka Menkiti said at a media dialogue in Kano that the figure was based on the 2016 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) report, which was carried in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
She said although the global report of 10.5 million recorded over eight years ago was still acceptable, the 13.2 million figure released by UBEC was controversial.
Azuka disclosed that 69 per cent of the figure came from the north with North-east accounting for the highest, followed by North-west.
“With the number, Nigeria accounts for more than one in five out-of-school globally and 45 per cent in West Africa.
“Girls are in the majority especially in Nigeria. South-east has an average of 11 per cent of children ages between four and six out of school.
“North has 31 per cent of ages between 6 and 14 out of school, while female attendance ratio is 44 per cent in Northeast and 47.4 per cent in North-west,” she added.
Consequent upon this, her counterpart, also an education specialist, Mr. Geoffrey Njoku, described the out-of-school number of children a time bomb, waiting to explode on the present generation, maybe in 10 years’ time.
He said whether the figure was 10 or 13 million, the number was already alarming.
“We can predict where Nigeria will be in the next ten years if we continue to have 10 million out-of-school children each year.
“Those children will visit their frustrations on the older generations if nothing is done to avert it,” he said.
Head, Child Rights Information Bureau, Federal Ministry of Information, Mr. Olumide Osanyipeju, in his remarks said many communities were in conflicts thereby making the provision of education difficult
He said the media is expected to drive the campaign that would minimise the out-of-school menace in the country.
Education and development consultant, Dr Dayo Ogundimu, said Nigeria would be waiting for a calamity if the issue of out-of-school children was not taken seriously.
UNICEF has described the controversial number of out-of-school children in Nigeria as a time bomb waiting to fall on older generations of the country.
The inability to have accurate records of out-school-children in the country could not be unconnected with poor data collection from schools and communities across the country.
Records at our disposal showed that while efforts have been made for effective data collation, the project had not been matched with adequate financing.
One of the expectations from correct data collation is to ensure effective implementation of government policies on school development, but unfortunately, these have not been achieved even at the tertiary levels of education.
Absence of continuity
It could be recalled that former minister of education, Dr. Sam Egwu, with his team, developed the roadmap for the education sector with lofty policies that could have moved the sector forward, but suffice to say that the document dies a natural death when Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i came in to replace him.
As in like manner, the document was returned to the shelves of the Federal Ministry of Education, while Rufa’i introduced the one-year strategic plan for the development of the sector, which expired in 2011.
With her return to continue as minister, she developed a four-year-strategic plan which ended along with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration headed by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
Although Rufa’i’s document gathered momentum and acceptability, her departure from the ministry, put the plan behind the shelves like that of Egwu, thereby returning the sector to another era of policy formulation without implementation.
