The 17.81 million out-of-school children is a big issue in Nigeria, especially the dominating Northern region. The government continually expresses worry over it, but with little financial commitment while the figure continues to grow out of proportion.
By ethnicity, the 2023 data by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that three major ethnic groups in the North : Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri have 8.11 million, 3.31 million, and 982K respectively.
Other ethnic groups where children out-of-school is an issue include:Yoruba with 856,000; Igbo with 797,000; Tiv with 216,000; Ijaw with 132,000 cases; Ibibio has 120,000 cases; Edo has 99,000, while others have approximately 3.19 million.
By region
The report reveals that the North alone has approximately 15.23 million. The North West, a region ravaged by banditry had 8.04 million affected students; 5.06 million of such children are found in the North East, a region that is badly affected by the activities of the Boko Haram insurgency; North Central had 2.12 million.
Others include South West with 1.15 million while South south and southeast had the lowest with 769,000 and 664,000 approximately.
A deeper analysis also showed that the top 10 states affected by this issue are all in the Northern region with Kebbi leading by having 65% of out-of-school children, followed by Zamfara with 61 percent.
Bauchi had 61%; Yobe had 58%; Gombe had 54%; Sokoto with 53%; 51% were found in Borno; 44% were found in Jigawa; Niger state had 40%; Katsina had 33%; the most populous northern state Kano had 32% while Adamawa had 30% of out-of-school kids.
Child Right Act, 2003 in jeopardy
While every parent are compelled by the child Right Act 2003 to make sure that their kids get primary and secondary education, the figure of kids who are out school is not encouraging as 8.98 million of such kids should be in primary school; Junior Secondary had 3.92 million while 4.91 million that should be in senior secondary, but are no longer in classes were 4.91 million. This is against the Compulsory, Free Universal Basic Education Act, which was signed into law in 2004.
Why is the North most affected?
The problem of education in the North is multifaceted. It is an issue the leadership in the region have not taken seriously for a long time, which has now grown out of hand.
As pointed out in this article we earlier published, factors such as insecurity as a result of the activities of banditry in most part of the Northwest, Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast, activities of herdsmen in North-central.
Even children who are interested in education have been kidnapped by terrorists and kept in their den for years. We’ve cases of some of these students sneaking out of their terrorist hideouts in Sambisa forest in the part of Borno State.
In some instances, some parents push their sole responsibilities to the government. They give birth indiscriminately with the hope that free education by the government would be enough. Sadly, the government has backtracked on the promise of free education for all. School buildings are dilapidated, no education materials, teachers are poorly paid or they are being owed by the government among other problems.
In the North, where Islam is the dominant religion, man is allowed by the Islamic principle to marry more than one wife provided he has the financial capacity and is able to love them equally.
Sadly, this has been abused by many, which has resulted in an explosion of population in that religion, many of such kids, particularly females are married off en masse at intervals.
Some of their state governors know little about what happens in their jurisdiction because they rule from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). There are state governors in the North that only go to their state once a week and when they do, they only visit the state capital.
Apart from schools in the state capital, many school buildings in other parts of the state are an eyesore despite foreign interventions and access to UBEC funds and other support programmes because supervision and coordinated monitoring is lacking.
This and other issues have really compounded the rate of out-of-school children in the Northern part.
Join EdubaseNG WhatsApp Channel to get the latest education & student loan tips
Join our Telegram Channel to get the latest news about Student Loans & Education News.
Are you a stakeholder in education? You can become our guest writer. Write to us using our our email address here
