Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu has said the number of out-of-school children nationwide is estimated at 10,193,918 and gave the rationale on why many kids are not enrolled in primary and secondary schools.
By contrast, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) had at the Northern Nigerian Traditional Rulers Conference on Out-of-School Children pre-conference briefing in Abuja, last year, said the number had increased to 13.2 million
The minister, represented by Permanent Secretary, Sunny Echono said at a press conference on Friday that the underlying principle for millions of out-of-school children included financial incapacitation, violent conflicts, ignorance on the part of parents/guardian, lack of political will to confront the ugly phenomenon, socio-cultural complexities, distance to schools, physically challenged children, child labour, migration, and orphanage.
He said the most endemic states of the out-of-school children included Kano, Akwa Ibom, Katsina, Kaduna, Taraba and Sokoto. Others were Yobe, Zamfara, Oyo, Benue Jigawa and Ebonyi.
He said, “For us as an administration, our concerns have been two-fold; to find an empirical means of getting the figures right and the best ways of reducing the number to the barest minimum.”
