From Abdurrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has emphasised the importance of integrating sustainability into the planning process of new policies and initiatives. The organisation called on governments and other stakeholders to consider the long-term impacts of their decisions to ensure a more sustainable future for all.
According to the UN agency, sustainability should be at the forefront of policy-making processes. It is only through deliberate and strategic planning that true progress toward a more sustainable and equitable world can be achieved.
This was disclosed by UNICEF’s Chief of Field Office in Bauchi, Dr Tushar Rane, while speaking with journalists at a two-day Regional Stakeholders Engagement Meeting on out-of-school children. The meeting, which was attended by commissioners of education and other officials from Bauchi, Gombe, and other states, aimed to devise strategies for reducing the number of out-of-school children and improving student retention, transition, and completion of secondary education.
Dr Rane highlighted the severity of the situation, with 10.2 million primary school-age children and 8.1 million junior secondary school-age children currently out of school across Nigeria. He emphasised the urgent need for collaborative efforts to reverse the trend, especially in the northern regions of the country.
According to statistics from the Multiple Indicator Cluster (MIC) Survey 2021, dropout rates have risen across all genders and wealth quintiles, particularly in northern Nigeria. Dr Rane identified various obstacles hindering education, including inadequate policy planning, budget allocation, teacher shortages, poor infrastructure, and cultural norms.
“UNICEF, in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission, has developed the National Framework of Action to Reduce the Number of Out-of-School Children in Nigeria and the Retention, Transition, and Completion Model to address these challenges,” he said.
The framework and model will guide state-specific strategies to confront the out-of-school children phenomenon, enhance community accountability, utilise innovations and technologies, and ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.
Meanwhile, Gombe State Commissioner of Education Prof. Aishatu Maigari told journalists that the issue of out-of-school children has become a pressing concern for the state. She said that since assuming office in 2019, the state governor, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, has been actively addressing the menace through policy implementation and collaborations with organisations such as UNICEF and the World Bank.
Prof. Maigari added that initiatives such as the Basic Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) and efforts by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) have been instrumental in addressing the issue in the state. “We had mopped out 350,000 children only to be told that we now have 750,000 children,” she said.
According to the commissioner, the alarming increase underscores the need for intensified efforts to combat the problem. She emphasised the need to double efforts to address the influx of new out-of-school children, despite ongoing initiatives to enroll and educate them.