UNICEF raises concerns over out-of-school children in South West

• Advocates more funding for secondary education

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), yesterday, expressed worry over out-of-school children in the South-West states.

UNICEF education specialists, Mrs Azuka Menkiti and Mr Babagana Aminu, expressed the worry during a two-day regional stakeholders’ meeting on out-of-schoolchildren and retention, transition and completion models for Lagos, Ondo, Osun, Ogun and Oyo states, which held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital .

UNICEF stressed the need for states to adopt the retention, transition, and completion models.

It has, therefore, forged partnerships with states to tackle the problem and identify its causes.

The international body said during the two-day stakeholders meeting, efforts must be geared towards creating sustainable solutions to ensure that every child has the opportunity to receive education.

Aminu disclosed that the issue of retention of schoolchildren had been one of the major challenges in Southwest.

He said: “In terms of being out of school in the Southwest, almost on average, putting all six states together according to the multiple cluster indicator survey that was conducted by NBS, it shows that about eight per cent of children are out of school.

“But that is not the most worrisome data, if I must say, concerning the southwestern states. Most of the worrisome data has to do with retention, that is, retaining those children that must have enrolled in school, but not only retaining them; are they completing the level of education that they have enrolled in?”

Another UNICEF education specialist, Menkiti, advocated more funding to be allocated to secondary schools, emphasising that it would equip them with necessary skills to succeed in life.

She said: “This comes from about 10 years of intervention we have done on girls’ education that has shown successful, tested, and skillable interventions that have been able to help us bring girls to school and keep them in school.

“What the two-day meeting is doing is supporting states to begin to look at issues that are drivers of dropouts for adolescents in their states. When we talk about the bigger picture of out-of-school children, we are looking at them from different perspectives: those who have never enrolled in school, those who are likely not to enroll in school, and those who have dropped out of school. So we are interested in this meeting for those who are at risk of dropping out and at risk of not actually completing secondary education.”

In his welcome address at the meeting, the Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Prof Salihu Abdulwaheed, described as embarrassing the issue of out-of-school, stressing the need for it to be dealt with.

In his contribution, the Ondo State Commissioner for Education, Science, and Technology, Mr Laolu Akindolire, said all factors causing children to drop out of school had been addressed in the state.