There have been growing calls by experts for Nigeria to use effective family planning in tackling the surge of out-of-school children amid the country’s burgeoning population.
Many analysts who are making the calls say that the increasing number of out-of-school children is a threat to national security.
These demands are rising amid contentious figures of the actual number of out-of-school children in the country.
While inaugurating the “Better Education Service Delivery For All (BESDA)”, in Katsina, recently, the Minister of State, Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, said that Nigeria has the highest number of Out-of-School Children in sub-Sahara Africa.
Specifically, Nwajiuba said that Nigeria had an estimated 10,193,918 children out-of-school.
According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) the out-of-school children are defined as the number of children of primary school age who are not attending school.
The Minister lamented the current challenges affecting the Nigerian education system has left much to be desired, the system is characterised by high illiteracy level, infrastructural decay and deficits.
These include inadequate number of qualified teachers, inadequate infrastructural facilities/resources and poor funding.
He stated that BESDA focuses on 17 states, 13 of which are in the North-west and North-east geopolitical zones, and Niger, Oyo, Ebonyi and Rivers.
However, a separate report quoting Ahmed Boboyi, the Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), noted that there are 13.2 million ‘out-of-school’ children in Nigeria.
Contrary to the figure given by the UBEC boss, the 2017 Multiple Indicator Health Survey (MICS) a survey conducted by the NBS and other partners, a total of 9.1 million children is out-of-school in Nigeria, according to UNICEF reports
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