Call To Action: Nigeria’s out-of-school children reduced by 3.2 million in 2020, now 6.9 million

Nigeria’s Federal Government has announced that the number of out-of-school children has reduced by 3,247,590 to 6,946,328, compared to 10.1 million it was in May 2019.

The FG disclosed this in a statement on Monday evening as it stated in a tweet:

Reports say the reduction is an result of encouraging school enrolment figures in all the 17 Nigerian states where the World Bank-backed “Better Education Service Delivery For All” (BESDA) programme is active.

“This 3,247,590 reduction is made up of 1,792,833 through formal schools while 1,454,757 are through nonformal interventions such as Almajiri, Girl Child, Nomadic/migrant and IDPs/Education in emergencies, as confirmed by the National Population Commission and the NBS.”

The Nigerian Government

Maintaining this rate of school enrollment, Nigeria will have no out-of-school children within 3 years. While this should revive hope for an educated youth population and cripple illiteracy in Nigeria, it is also a call to action. It is an energizing wake up call to all educational stakeholders to collaborate towards getting the rest its child and teenage population into school too, especially in the 19 states where the World Bank-backed BESDA programme is absent.