Nigeria has one of the largest out-of-school children figures globally. The country ranks 5th with 10.19 million out-of-school children. This figure accounts for 34% of the total children population in the country.
Majority of the children that make up this figure are found in the north-western (NW) region of the country, making up 34.24% of the total out-of-school children in Nigeria. The six states in this region collectively have 3.5 million children out of school.
#ChartoftheDay: Nominal Food Prices up by 1.45% in December
The north-east had 19.63% of the total out-of-school children and is second, the south-west region is in the third position with 14.24%. The south-east has the least proportion, accounting for just 7% of the total figure.
States like Kano, Akwa Ibom, Katsina, Kaduna, and Taraba are the top five states with the largest number of out-of-school children. Kano alone has almost a million out-of-school children. These states together account for 30.72% of the total number of out-of-school children in the country.
These numbers are not new to most people, the numbers have become a soapbox from which everyone rails against the state of education in the country and as the country joins the rest of the world to mark another International Day for Education, these numbers should transcend mere tokens of Nigeria’s many development challenges.
These numbers are children you know, your distant cousins’ kids in the village who you only see at Christmas and burials, the 5 children of Sadiq at the gate to whom you give your children’s old clothes, Mama Bimbo’s three youngest kids who rush to your car window with whatever you’ve ordered from their mom’s little tuck shop, Mazi’s son who helps to wash your car whenever you show up on Wednesday morning for your weekly car cleaning, the boys and girls who rush forward in blazing noon day heat hoping to make N50 by washing the windshield of your car; these children, across all the 36 states of Nigeria, make up the 10.9 million out of school kids.
Today, let us collectively ask “what is the plan for taking these children off the streets and into classrooms”?
International Day for Education