Why children still stay out of school

Ten-year-old Ibrahim Sabo says his parents relocated to Bwari in the FCT about three years ago, and he is attending Islamiyya lessons and learning how to memorize the Holy Qur’an.  Sobo is not yet in primary school, but he says he hopes to start it after memorizing the Qur’an. His friend, Sa’adu Ibrahim, roams the […]

Ten-year-old Ibrahim Sabo says his parents relocated to Bwari in the FCT about three years ago, and he is attending Islamiyya lessons and learning how to memorize the Holy Qur’an.  Sobo is not yet in primary school, but he says he hopes to start it after memorizing the Qur’an.

His friend, Sa’adu Ibrahim, roams the streets of Bwari begging for food. He says he dropped out of school on the instruction of his parents about four years ago. He was in primary 5, and was about to seek admission to secondary school when his parents relocated to Garam in Niger State. He then started an Islamiiyya school in Bwari.

Sabo and Ibrahim are among the about 10.2 million children of school age the federal government says are not yet in school.

Several reasons account for out-of-school kids, according to the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.  But he said those reasons must be dealt with, in order to improve access to quality  education.

The minister’s representative, the Permanent Secretary, Sunny Echono, said at a news conference in Abuja that it is a sad note on the nation’s history that in the 21st century, Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa and perhaps in the world, ranked second to Pakistan.

Some of the reasons for this according him include financial incapacitation, violent conflicts, ignorance of parents/guardians, lack of political will to confront the phenomenon, socio-cultural complexities, distance to schools, physically challenged children, child labour, migration and orphanage.

A number of interest groups, donor agencies and individuals with good intentions are said to be complementing government’s efforts in addressing this, but there is still have very low rates of enrolment among children with disabilities and girls. In several instances, girls and children with disabilities have dropped out of school due to lack of facilities for special education and poor sanitation. Again, in spite of the recent surge in enrolment in some states as a result of the free school meals, cultural practices continue to force girls out of school.

The minister said the present government had received conflicting figures since inception in 2015 about out of school children are still between 10 and 13 million and sequel to that, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and other stakeholders including the National Population Commission and the National Bureau of Statistics have been working to determine the number of children of school age who are not in school. Moreover, UBEC, the World Bank, UNICEF and other development partners are collaborating to reduce the number.

However, the figure is not evenly distributed across the states. Nevertheless, the states with the highest numbers, according to the government, include; Kano, Akwa Ibom, Katsina, Kaduna, Taraba, Sokoto.  Others are Yobe, Zamfara, Oyo, Benue, Jigawa and Ebonyi.

Apart from the free school meals and uniforms, a number of states have reportedly taken measures to increase enrolment in schools and even mitigate cultural problems and practices that keep millions of girls out of school, in addition to the provision of improved school infrastructure.

Kano State for instance, which has about three million out of school children, the highest in the country, has built the highest number of public basic schools, according to Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. The governor said great number of out-of-school children is from neighboring countries attending Qur’anic schools in the state. He said his colleagues from the northern states would discuss the matter and possibly pass laws to prevent irregular migration.

The state will also work with a coalition of civil society organizations to conduct a survey on Almajiri or Qur’anic schools in an effort to obtain accurate data and sanitize them. Almajirai, pupils of the Almajiri schools, make up the largest number of street beggars, and apparently, those not enrolled in primary schools.

According to a survey by the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN) in Jigawa State, there are over 700,000 out of school children.

A source with SUBEB said the state has set aside N10 million in this year’s budget for the establishment of Tafiz schools to admit Almajirai.

The school would run a three-year primary education programme after which the pupils would be enrolled in junior secondary schools.

The pilot project of Tafiz schools, which would combine Islamic and western education, is expected to commence in nine local government areas of the state.

Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Education Prof. Victor Inoka, said ranking the state among the group is not correct.  He argued that there is no reason for children in the state to be out of school because of the free education policy that has been in existence for over 10 years.

He stated that the government pays the SSCE fees for all students and pays subvention for every child in public school.

Prof. Inoka revealed that during the national personnel audit, authorities were even surprised at the high enrollment figure in the state.

“We don’t know where that is coming from. That figure is suspicious because it was made based on projections on population. Where is the verifiable data? Did they conduct any audit?

“The audit personnel were alarmed at the high rate of enrollment in Akwa Ibom. It was 10 million out of school kids they were shouting and had to maneuver and put us in the region of about 1.4 million.

“They never undertook any audit, so what model or statistical device did they use to arrive at their figure? That figure has no basis; in fact, it is just an armchair speculative projection,” he said.

In Sokoto State too, authorities said the audit did not recognize Islamic schools offering formal education.

A top government official told Daily Trust that the audit did not take into account, children attending Islamiyya schools.

“There are children who are attending Islamiyya schools that offer some courses of western education but are not recognized because Islamiyya education is not classified as formal education in the country,” he said.

The official also cited the 2017 UNICEF report which said the number of out of school children in Sokoto had dropped by half.

The executive chairman of SUBEB, Bello Danchadi who also faulted the report said he could not speak further on the matter.

According to the 2017 UNICEF report, the number of out-of-school children in Sokoto has dropped by 37 per cent. It was 69 percent in 2015, the highest in the country.

Experts at a UNICEF media dialogue in Kano traced causes of the rising case to poverty, insecurity, lack of access to schools, cultural practices, and general inequity in the education sector.

The Communication Specialist of UNICEF, Geoffrey Njoku, while calling for action on this menace, said, “Without focusing on the most deprived, Nigeria will continue to have bad indicators because of inequity.”

Kebbi, Zamfara and Sokoto states are targeting about 500, 000 OOSC to be enrolled in school. An impact assessment conducted by a firm, CAPRA International, showed that more girls are now in school and there is significant increase in the income of poor households.

In Benue State, factors such as armed attacks on rural communities, early marriage, long distances to school, poor financing of education, inadequate enrolment drive, apathy towards school and preference for menial jobs among others were identified as reasons for out-school-school children.

The Information Officer of the State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB), Mrs Sar Erdoo, said  Benue is among states with the highest number of out-of-school children.

Erdoo said the consequences of kids being out-of-school include continued high illiteracy rate, increase in crime, underdevelopment, low level of girl-child education, child labour, child terrorism, drug abuse among others.

A former chairman of Gaidam Local Government Area of Yobe State, Dr Mulima Idi Mato Geidam, said there were still villages in many parts of the state that have apathy to western education.

He said government has built primary schools in villages like Dejina, Kusur, Pchimaram and Barko but the schools were empty because parents refused to allow their children to enroll.

“They prefer to keep the children home either for fear of insurgents or to rear their cattle and fetch water for the family. I tried to change their perception to no avai” he said.

He said local authorities had carried out awareness campaigns in areas that had apathy towards western education and established schools for them.