United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), in its latest global data, said Nigeria now has about 20 million out-of-school children.

It said there are 244 million children and youth between the ages of six and 18 worldwide who are still out of school. According to the statistics, India, Nigeria and Pakistan have the highest figures for out-of-school children globally. The figure in Nigeria was between 10.5 and 13.5 million. But with insecurity and kidnapping of school children, most parents are not disposed to sending their wards to school.

UNESCO and PRESIDENT of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan have raised the alarm that the out of School Children especially the Almajiris in the North has become  a big challenge facing Nigeria as a nation. Speaking recently during discussions on a motion “the Need to Integrate Almajiri Education into Modern System of Education in Nigeria, relating to the deplorable condition and plight of the Almajiris in the North, Lawan said that the problem constitutes not only at the level of social, but security challenge to Nigeria as a nation.

UNESCO announced the figures in a statement, part of which reads: “The new estimates, published online by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, showed that sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the most children and youths out of school. It is also the only region where this number is increasing; out-of-school rates are falling more slowly than the rate at which the school-age population is growing.

“The region with the second highest out-of-school population is Central and Southern Asia with 85 million. The top three countries with the most children and youth excluded from education are: India, Nigeria and Pakistan.”

I want to appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari, Governors and members of the national assembly to support and get the 20 million out of school children back to classrooms. Many pupils may remain out of school as no fewer than 650 schools have remained shut in some troubled states owing to attacks by terrorists in different parts of the country. Many northern states have come under attack by terrorists with many people, including children, killed and several others kidnapped. The most hit states are Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina and Niger, while Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, Plateau and Taraba states have not been spared by the attackers.

The disturbing rate of out-of-school children came to the fore again when a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, in partnership with Global Education Monitoring Report, showed that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria had risen to 20 million from about 12.5 million recorded in 2021.

According to Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Silvia Montoya, efficient use of available data is important to address the gaps towards achieving the fourth goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The official said: “UNESCO has long underscored the need to make more efficient use of the data we have. That’s why we’ve brought together administrative data with information from surveys and censuses. By using multiple data sources, gaps are filled, data trends are smoothed, and we can draw consistent time series.”

UNESCO’s Assistant Director General for Education, Stefania Giannini, said: “Global out-of-school numbers are lower than we thought, but far too many children are still missing out. Countries have committed to benchmarks to slash out-of-school numbers by over half by 2030. We must identify solutions during the Transforming Education Summit called by the United Nations Secretary-General, this September, so that countries can deliver on these pledges. All children should have access to quality education.”

The 10 states at the top of the chart of the country’s about 20 million out-of-school children. Kano State had the most  while Akwa-Ibom , Katsina and Kaduna followed closely. Other states that ranked high on the list are Taraba , Sokoto , Yobe , Zamfara and Bauchi . The states with the lowest numbers of out-of-school children were Cross River , Abia , Kwara , Enugu , Bayelsa , FCT and Ekiti .

Almajiri” or “street child” we ignore today, becomes the undoing of our civilization. We must pay attention to the ‘dregs’ or become real victims of our collective apathy. The Almajiri has remained the most abused personae in Nigeria’s North and beyond. Abused and abandoned, he has been forced to turn into monsters separately called Boko Haram, Bandit, Shekau, Turji and many more to come. The Almajiri would rather be deleted than exist. The Almajiri is the most visible tragedy seen on the streets of all northern Nigerian cities and beyond. They litter at garages, ATM centers, Hotels, brothels, motor parks, Go-slow gridlocks  and even Church and Mosque gates. They often end up as street urchins (area boys), male prostitutes, petty and hard criminals, garage boys and most recently, Boko Haram, Iswap and Bandits as well as dangerous tools for desperate politicians to get at one another’s’ throats.

 

The reasons for the uncertainty that now plagues schools in Nigeria are many and the danger rises both from within and outside the schools. Firstly, there is insecurity.

In 2014, Boko Haram terrorists stormed a secondary school for girls in Chibok, Borno State and made away with hundreds of girls. More than seven years have gone by and some of the girls are yet to return home to their heartbroken families.

When the intrepid terrorists saw that the response of the Giant of Africa to the abductions in Chibok was tepid at best, they struck another school in Dapchi, Yobe State and helped themselves to the number of students they wanted. The pattern has since been repeated in many hapless schools across Nigeria`s North to bring education to its knees in a region that was educationally disadvantaged even before Boko Haram reared its ugly head. The terrorists have also ensured that countless schools in the region have been razed and the educational trajectory of many innocent children twisted forever.

If it was just Boko Haram, it would have been devastating enough, but bandits which have come to pose equally grave security challenges to Nigeria have recently refined the art storming schools and kidnapping students. Sometime last year, over a hundred students of a school in Tegina, Niger State spent close to three months in the den of bandits. They were only released after their terrified families paid millions of naira in ransom.

Even in institutions of higher learning, decrepit structures give way to send students plunging to their deaths even as ASUU embarks on another of its routine strikes while citing the treachery of the government of the day. In the Federal Capital Territory, pupils of some public primary schools have been at home for close to a month as a strike sees precious time bleeding away. The signs are indeed ominous.

Nigeria can continue to huff and puff about poverty eradication and development, but at the end of the day, it is quality education which can be profoundly alchemical that can alter the country`s march to doom and transform its national life and outlook. Quality education has the power to confront Nigeria`s difficulties at their nests which is in the mind of Nigerians.

But for quality education to do what it must do, the safety of the schools where it is imparted must be unfailingly guaranteed. There is no other way to this, neither is there a shorter route.

Until every pupil and student in Nigerian can feel safe while going to school, while in school and while returning from school, Nigeria will continue to live on a knife`s edge.

Inwalomhe Donald writes via [email protected]