Shanono Adamu, a 10-year-old girl from Bunza Local Government Area of Kebbi State, spends her days with her family and other children sitting around the main road in Ketu, Lagos State, begging for alms.
Shanono does not know his father and has never attended school in his life. Every day, she, her two brothers and her mother leave their temporary wooden shelter in Ojuelegba at 7 a.m. and return home around 6:30 p.m. Her family eats crumbs from people’s tables and doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring. It wasn’t always like this for her family, until terrorists forced them from their farmland in April 2023.
Shanono and her two sisters are among the 18.3 million children currently locked out of school due to worsening security and accelerating poverty in Africa’s most populous country, according to the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF). contained within.
Busayo Adelowunmu, a lecturer at Covenant University in Ogun State, said, “The more children in a country are out of school, the higher the level of illiteracy, insecurity and poverty.”
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Mr. Aderonmu said the country was facing a learning crisis and an economic crisis mainly caused by the increasing number of out-of-school children.
“This means that if this problem is not brought under control in time, the economy will face serious problems in the future.”
According to Tushar Lane, UNICEF field director in Bauchi, this 18.3 million figure comes as Nigeria faces the challenge of having the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, with only a fraction of the children in primary school in Nigeria. They point out that only 63 percent attend school regularly. Nigeria.
He said in May 2024 that only 84% of Nigerian children go on to secondary school after primary school.
He cited limited budgets, a lack of appropriate evidence-based policies, a shortage of teachers and classrooms, poor infrastructure, cultural norms, health and safety concerns, and child labor as reasons for this situation. It was done.
Familoni Olajumoke, Chairman and Founder of the International Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurship Development (ICLED), said the high number of out-of-school children was having serious economic implications for the country.
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He noted that this high figure negatively impacts Nigeria’s human capital development and called on the government to deliberately address the issue and work to improve learning outcomes in the country.
In recent years, kidnappings of school children for ransom have occurred almost every day.
In March 2024, armed groups kidnapped more than 200 students in Kuriga, a town in northern Kaduna state.
School kidnappings in Nigeria were first carried out by Boko Haram, who abducted about 276 students from a girls’ school in Chibok, Borno state, a decade ago. Some girls have not yet been released.
The top three states with the highest proportion of out-of-school children in the country are Kebbi, Sokoto and Yobe.
Mr Kebbi had a staggering 67.6 per cent while Mr Sokoto had 66.4 per cent. In Yobe State, there are 62.9% of areas where children aged 6 to 15 do not attend school.
In its latest report on Nigeria, UNICEF said more than seven in 10 out-of-school children in Kebbi state lack formal education due to poverty and inadequate infrastructure. .
Experts say kidnapping and rising poverty rates are the main causes of children dropping out of school, especially in northern Nigeria.
“There are many factors that could be responsible for the high rate of out-of-school children, but the main ones are kidnapping and poverty,” Adelowunmu pointed out.
UNICEF research shows that the problems that characterize Nigeria’s education system lie behind the high level of security in Katsina and Zamfara states. There is less funding for education. Schools with limited resources. Among other things, the level of teacher competency is low and the student-teacher ratio is high.
UNICEF said these factors lead to lower overall educational attainment, hinder social and economic opportunities for young people, and perpetuate intergenerational cycles of poverty and inequality.
“In 2021 alone, at least 25 schools were attacked, with 1,446 learners and 24 staff directly affected. Around 76 per cent of attacks occurred in the North West.
“Kaduna was the most frequently attacked with 8 out of 25 attacks. Katsina State had 344 practitioners, followed by Zamfara State with 327, with the highest number of abductees in a single kidnapping. It is reported that a person was taken.
“As a precautionary measure, more than 11,000 schools were closed for four months in the 2020/21 school year, significantly disrupting the education of 1.3 million children,” UNICEF reported.
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education budget is low
The United Nations agency accused Nigeria’s education financing of failing to keep up with growing demand for learning and high population rates.
“Nigeria spends 1.2 per cent of its GDP on education, which is much lower than other African countries and significantly lower than the international standard of 4 to 6 per cent.
“Due to a lack of domestic funding, there is a shortage of 378,000 classrooms and approximately 278,000 teachers.
“This is due to the high student-teacher ratio (55:1 at primary level) and the fact that 50 per cent of basic education teachers do not have a Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) or minimum education, which already limits capacity. This leads to additional pressure on teachers who are qualified. ”
“Furthermore, 20 percent of elementary school teachers are absent on any given working day,” the report said.
Why is education important?
Kingsley Mogale, director of the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation, said education empowers people to realize their full potential.
“Functional education inculcates more in learners beyond the prescribed academic curriculum and encourages the development of social behaviors that will serve them well in the future.
“A well-educated person not only feels confident in leading a fulfilling personal life, but also actively engages in problem-solving within a social context, thereby increasing overall social well-being and It promotes social cohesion,” he said.
Looking at the development of Nigeria’s human capital, we see that the missing gap in the pursuit of growth and socio-economic well-being is the low level of the education system.
Kayode Afolayan, a teacher, said: “Nigeria is severely lacking in human capital development as the threat of out-of-school children has been building up over the years.”
