Out-Of-School-Children; Striving Towards Zero Tolerance For Future-Damaging Phenomenon

By Adewole Kehinde

School participation remains a challenge across Nigeria and obstacles are particularly severe in Northern States. In addition to issues of school access, family and school resources and attitudes towards education, school attendance in Northern Nigeria is impeded by the increasingly brazen extremism of Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group, and it’s targeting of girls’ education.

The group opposes the Western-style education associated with formal schooling in Nigeria and seeks to relegate women exclusively to the household. As a result, risks associated with school-going are compounded for girls and young women in a context where female educational attainment is persistently low.

Indeed, in many Northern States more than 50% of young women ages 15-24 have no experience with formal education.
The kidnapping of an estimated 276 school girls in Borno state by Boko Haram testifies to the magnitude of risk that girls and young women bear when they attend school.

This challenge to safety accompanies great educational need in Borno, where the female secondary school net attendance rate is only 29% in comparison to a national average of 53%. An additional 18% of secondary school age girls attend formal school in Borno but at the primary level.

These girls may benefit from exposure to schooling but they are behind for their age and at greater risk of dropping out. A further 7% of secondary school age girls attend non-formal programs. Given the increased violence from Boko Haram from 2010 forward, it is impressive that even 54% of secondary school age girls participate in some form of schooling, formal or non-formal.

Still, alarmingly, nearly half (46%) of girls of secondary school age are not attending either formal or non-formal education programs and therefore don’t receive any benefits of schooling. Addressing the educational needs of young women across northern Nigeria requires investment that is sensitive to the dangers of this context and helps to ensure safe participation in school.

Recently, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, disclosed that the number of out-of-school children in the country had dropped from 10.5 million to 8.6 million in the last three years. According to him, “When President Muhammadu Buhari came into power in 2015; UNICEF said out-of-school children in Nigeria were about 10.5 million. But I want to tell Nigerians that with the effort of this president, especially with the school feeding programme, it dropped from 10.5 million to 8.6 million as at last year.” While the difference in figures is understandable, there is nothing to cheer in a single Nigerian child, not to talk of millions of children, being out of school. The current government may have brought the figure down but the disgrace remains monumental.

The problem of Out-Of-School Children is global as UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS 2014) stated that worldwide, nearly 58 million children of primary school age were not enrolled in school despite global initiatives dedicated to achieving universal primary education. Among these world’s Out-Of-School Children, over two-thirds are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia.

In finding solutions, experts diagnosed the problems leading to Out-Of-School Children and attribute the prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa to a variety of supply and demand side barriers.

They argue that children’s poor access to education may be occasioned by inadequate number of qualified teachers, materials and schools, particularly for children in remote areas, children living with disabilities, children in IDP camps and ethno-linguistic minorities.

On the demand side, they opine that poor demand for education leading to exclusion from school may be driven by misperceptions about the benefits of schooling and or poor quality of education.

Even so, the assertion of Adamu is doubtful because the source of the figures and their veracity were not made known. The claimed improvement in Nigeria, attributed mainly to the school feeding programme, discounts the efforts of the various States and Local governments to promote children education and therefore, renders the figure even more suspect.

For instance, the administration of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan changed the face of education in Delta State through some educational policies and one of such policies was the Delta Education Marshals (DEM) which has been replicated in some states of the federation.

The DEM policy was formulated by the State government then to eradicate ‘street culture’ and create what was called ‘learning culture’. The educational policy was enunciated to support the development of learning in young people of school age in the state.

The EduMarshals were given specific mandates which included the detection and prevention of truancy among students; the apprehension of school age child hawking or selling in stores or shops during school hours; maintenance of school hour’s surveillance and arrest, detention and investigation and/or returning or registering any person of school age found outside school premises during school hours.

Other functions of the EduMarshals are the provision of intelligence to relevant ministries, police and stakeholders on any matters relating to a child, to make a child under 18 years of age to attend school or learn a trade (skills acquisition) and to ensure that the streets of Delta State are free of children during school hours.

Similarly, there is the Osun State Education Marshalls, constituted to help curb all forms of indiscipline and moral decadence among pupils and staff of public schools in the State. The Oyo State government’s variant codenamed “Education Monitoring Marshalls” was introduced to raise more disciplined school children as the special tax force is empowered to arrest and discipline students caught wandering out of school premises during school hours, aimed at changing students’ attitude positively towards learning.

In a related development, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State, while flagging off an advocacy campaign to boost school enrolment for the eastern part of the State in Durbawa village of Wurno Local Government Area, warned that parents in the state would now face appropriate sanctions in accordance with the laws of the state for refusing to send their children to school.

Furthermore, some state governments have developed a culture of continuously improving the quality of education from primary to tertiary levels through the provision of state-of-the-art infrastructural facilities, capacity building for teachers and many other programmes to promote effective teaching and learning in the schools.

So, at the moment in Nigeria and across various levels of government, it is obvious that enrolling Out-Of-School Children is now seen not only as a moral and legal obligation but a productive investment that is worthwhile, and it is being given attention in line with the 2003 Child Rights Act, which recognizes access to basic education as part of the rights of a child.

Also, from the interventions by various States, it is obvious that there is no single measure to drive demand for children school enrolment. The solution lies in multi-level interventions and investments in primary education. Therefore, people holding the reins in Nigerians should not speak anecdotally on the issue of Out-Of-School Children.

The country needs serious data gathering to deal with its problems. Once again, with the aforementioned efforts in the states, the picture of Out-Of-School Children may not be as bad as the Minister painted. But whether it is more or less is not important. Nigeria should strive towards zero tolerance for such a future-damaging phenomenon as out-of- school-children.

Adewole Kehinde is the publisher of Swift Reporters, one of the fastest growing online

media in Nigeria