BMO says UNESCO’s report on Nigeria’s 20 million out of school children, is baseless
By Emma Ogbuehi
President Muhammadu Buhari media support group, the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has described the figure of 20 million out-of-school-children in Nigeria recently released by the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) as a hoax and an unverified figure.
UNESCO had, in its latest global data, said Nigeria now has about 20 million out-of-school children, adding that 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.
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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 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.”
But in faulting the report, the BMO in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, wondered why UNESCO would announce such outrageous figure as being out of school in the country when in 2020, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), the body responsible for basic education in Nigeria had released a figure of 6.9 million children as being out of school. By 2022 a total of four million children were enrolled in the school system, based on data provided by the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA).
“We therefore wonder where and how UNESCO arrived at its unverified figure of 20 million out-of-school-children. It is important to remind UNESCO that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has since inception initiated different programmes, including the home-grown school feeding programme, in order to encourage school enrolment in the country.
“So far the government’s strategies have seen the figure of out of school children reduce to about two million.
We therefore advise the UNESCO and other non-governmental organisations to tread with caution when releasing statistics relating to Nigeria’s out-of-school-children figures, to avoid misleading the public.
“It is important that at every point in time they should liaise with the relevant government agencies to avail themselves of accurate information”, the statement added.