Nigeria has highest number of out-of-school children in world – Perm. Sec.

From: Desmond Mbo,Kano

Nigeria has highest number of out-of-school children in the world, says the Federal Ministry of Education, on Monday.

Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr. Shade Yemi-Esan made this revelation during the opening ceremony of the 62nd National Council on Education (NCE) meeting, in Kano.

Dr. Shade Yemi-Esan, who was represented by Dr. Adamu Hussaini indicated that, out of the 20 million out of school children in the world, 10 .5 million of such children were found in Nigeria.

He said these children included the girl-child, Almajiri-child, children of nomadic pastoralists, boy-child dropout, area boys, children of migrant farmers and fisher men, children living with disabilities and more recently children displaced by insurgency.

The Permanent Secretary added that although the last few decades had witnessed a steady growth of both government and donor -driven interventions to address the problem of access to quality education, Nigeria was still confronted by low attendance, low attainment and low completion rate

Speaking, Kano State Deputy Governor Prof. Hafiz Abubakar, described the theme of the meeting as apt, noting that Nigeria, in 2015 committed itself to the implementation of the SDG at the United Nations General Assembly.