By Cecilia Ijou
Prof Steve Nwokeocha, a Sociologist at the University of Calabar has decried the high level of out- of -school children in Nigeria and said that the lack of attention by state governments to help the children back to school is worrisome.
Nwokeocha, also the Executive Director of Africa Foundation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities Centurion for South Africa, Nigeria said it was unrealistic for the Federal Government alone to find lasting solution to the problem and called for collaborative efforts.
According to him, if the states paid as much attention to education as they paid to politics, there will be drastic reduction in the number of out-of-school children in the country.
The academic who lamented that having such a huge number of Nigerian’s population out of school was a time bomb, called for urgent attention by a stakeholders to solve the problem.
He said, ” at the basic education level, inclusion is still a serious concern as long as more than 10 million children are still out of school. Just the way Northern Governors Forum and Southern Governors Forum are meeting and talking tough about politics and security, they need to meet to talk tough about children roaming the streets.
“They need to realise that Nigeria being the world’s capital of out-of-school children calls for a state of emergency in basic education. Unfortunately the states have not shown enough concern about the out-of-school problem.” he said.
Meanwhile, UNICEF on its website said about “10.5 million of the country’s children aged five to 14 years are not in school. “Only 61 per cent of 6-11 years-old regularly attend primary schools and only 35.6 per cent of children aged 36- 59 months receive early education” NAN
