BY AWELE OGBOGU
The factors that contribute to the incidence of out-of-school children are alien to Delta State, but all the same, not a few are heading to the state and unless something is done quickly, they may attempt to take root. Many under the guise of being called Hausa markets, are home to not a few number of out-school-children in the state.
The Pointer encountered a number of Fulani colonies in the state (most worrisome are sundry locations at Okpanam by both sides of the expressway, at Issele-Azagba, Ogwashi-Uku around the Ubu River, to mention but a few), in addition to a sparse number of out-of-school children constituting a nuisance at Summit Junction, Ibusa Junction and other strategic points in Asaba where they solicit arms rather than going to school. In their own way, school is a scam; even at Fulani colonies and herders camps. The groups although far away from home, engage in early/child marriage and other socio-cultural norms. In such situations, what was found were delayed enrolment of an eligible school aged child, a child who will never attend school, a child who will attend school but later drop out. The combination of demand and supply barriers to educational access has led to and continues to contribute to the large number of out of school children in Nigeria.
A source said that both governmental and non-governmental efforts are necessary to tackle the current situation through the use of education innovations such as the Accelerated Education Programme, combined with other conventional interventions such as rebuilding and expanding of infrastructure, more enrolment sensitisation, economic intervention, improved security and legal enforcement.
Nigeria has the largest number of out-of-school children in the world (UNICEF). It is estimated that one in every five out-of-school children around the globe is in Nigeria. Even though basic education is legally free and compulsory in the country, about 10.5 million children aged 5 to 14 years are out of school. About 50 percent of these children live in the north still severely affected by the Boko Haram insurgency. In addition, only 61 per cent of
children between the ages of 6 to 11 years attend primary school regularly (UNICEF).
He said that there are a number of factors that contribute to the incidence as recorded across low and middle income countries like Nigeria. These factors include but are not limited to early/child marriage, economic barriers, conflict, socio-cultural norms and lack of inclusive policies/practices in schools. However, he categorised these factors into two, that is demand and supply barriers. “These barriers could lead to one or all of these situations: delayed enrolment of an eligible school aged child, a child who will never attend school, a child who will attend school but later drop out.
“Demand barriers are considered to be decisions made by household members that affect a child’s access to quality education. There are several factors that could affect the demand for education. Some of these factors include: early/ child marriage, low household income, child labour, religion, culture, etc. (UNICEF).
Another rationale connoted that schools are the key drivers of education access, quality, and retention. But they could potentially affect a child’s access to education, including but not limited to lack of infrastructure, conflict/insecurity, lack of qualified teachers, language of instruction and distance to school (UNICEF).
Why do children never attend school or dropped out of school. The reasons given by respondents were mainly barriers leading to school drop-out among school aged children. The Pointer recorded that 15 percent of responses were about inadequate supply of infrastructures and distance to school as major supply side factors contributing to the numbers in Nigeria.
As stated earlier, there are other factors that are responsible such as lack of qualified
teachers, language barriers, conflict/insecurity, etc. In the northern part of Nigeria, conflict and fragility has led to a major setback in their education system, particularly the northeast which has led to the closure of many schools across the region. As a result of these, an estimated 1.9 million people, including women and girls of school age have been displaced from their homes. Also, approximately 1,200 schools have been damaged, and 1,700 have been closed down. More than 600 teachers have been slain, and 19,000 have been forced to flee their homes, while the closing down of schools has had far-reaching consequences, including ending the education of many students and the opportunity to pursue higher education. The Boko Haram insurgency
is also one of the reasons for the widespread destruction of businesses and other economic activities in many parts of northern Nigeria, which has indirect impacts on the ability of parents to keep their children in school.
The 2016-2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)1 provides relevant information on the situation in Nigeria. This is disaggregated according to gender, geopolitical zones, wealth index and settlement type, i.e., rural and urban. This is the latest nationwide information on out-school-children that covers the 36 states of the federation as at the time of writing this report. The NEDS 2020 only covered 17 states while the measurement in the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) report was estimated based on extrapolated National Population Commission
NPC data and the available National Personnel Audit (NPA) data shows that across the geopolitical zones in Nigeria, the northeast has the highest percentage of both primary and secondary school age in the country. In the northeast, there are more out-of-school (OOS) girls than boys who are of primary school age (i.e. 42.4 per cent and 37.3 per cent respectively).
These results are also similar for secondary school age children with more OOS girls than boys at 38.1 percent and 36.5 percent respectively. In the overall outlook, northern geo-political zones portray higher proportions of out-of-school children relative to the southern geopolitical zones in Nigeria. This result can be explained by a combination of factors including higher rates of poverty; prevalence of child marriage primarily influenced by cultural and religious beliefs;
and insecurity and terrorist attacks, especially the presence of Boko Haram in the northeast. Also, nomadic pastoralist families are predominant in the north whose continuous migration by the reason of their occupation keeps their children out of school. The northern part of the country is constituted by the majority of Muslims where religion is pivotal to identity and way of life. As such, it is common for parents to prefer Quranic education to public schools. Unfortunately, these schools are not designed to teach secular subjects that equip the children with foundational numeracy and literacy skills, let alone basic sciences and civic education.
Hence, current strategy by the government must entail the integration of these schools into the educational system, under the Integrated Quranic and Tsangaya Education (IQTE) programme of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC). By this, the government will adopt and fund these schools, mandate them to incorporate secular subjects into their curriculum and provides capacity building for their teachers on secular subjects’ pedagogy.
The southern parts of the country generally show lower proportions of OOSC for both boys and girls. This may have been influenced by a greater degree of openness to Western education. The southeast was hitherto known for the OOS boy-child phenomenon. This is attributable to the norm of preference for trade apprenticeship over formal schooling which makes parents withdraw their boy child from school at an early age to join business apprenticeship and become rich in no distant time. It was believed that entrepreneurship promises better economic benefit than the uncertainty of employment after formal education.
The Pointer had access to a Ministerial Technical Committee to look into this issue. Low male enrolment was observed in the southwest more vividly in the secondary schools. These were mostly ‘area boys’, some of whom were homeless children living on the streets. The male child is traditionally expected to provide for the home in the future when he becomes a man. This is not a judgmental position to say that parents are making incorrect decisions given the current realities of the country’s economy with respect to the labour market prospects.
These boys are made up of pre-teens, teenagers and youth who mostly end up in hooliganism. OOSC in the south-south was found to be predominantly children of migrant fishermen who travel with their parents in pursuit of family business. Some of the demand and supply barriers that affect children’s education access in the north are also witnessed in the south but to a modest degree.
This supports the findings of Kainuwa et al. (2013)
In any way, socio-economic background influences education levels in Nigeria. Causal pathways for this vary. For instance, poor households are more rural, less likely to have educated parents. This result may also be associated with malnutrition and stunting that delays enrolment. As such, children of this profile may never enrol in school and where they do, they tend to easily drop out.
In all the charts displayed in the panels, it was observed that girls tend to be more educationally disadvantaged, constituting a higher proportion of OOSC in most cases, although not substantial. By cultural gender norm, girls in some households are often encumbered with domestic activities with their mothers at home at the expense of schooling. They are also predisposed to being married while still of school-age. It was identified that religious misinterpretation, cultural practice, poverty, early marriage, illiteracy, and inadequate school infrastructure as some of the factors working against girl-child education in Nigeria.
The Pointer was more interested in possible Interventions. It was gathered that across the Federal, State and local government levels, efforts have been made to address the problem of OOSC in the country. Recently, intervention attention was has mainly focused on the conflict ravaged northeast where the basic education system has suffered a major disruption. A blend of interventions both by state and non-state actors is necessary to effectively fix the problem. A number of possible interventions were presented.
There were strindent calls for Accelerated Education Programme. Accelerated Education Programme (AEP) is a widely used education innovation to address the education needs of OOSC globally which has shown potential to bring about a significant reduction in the number of OOSC in Nigeria. According to the Accelerated Education Working Group (AEWG 2017), AEPs are flexible, age- appropriate programmes, run in an accelerated time frame,which aim to provide access to education for disadvantaged, over-age, out-of-school children and youth – particularly those who missed out on or had their education interrupted due to poverty, marginalisation, conflict, and crisis. The goal of Accelerated Education Programmes is to provide learners with equivalent, certified competencies for basic education using effective teaching and learning approaches that match their level of cognitive maturity. The potentials of this programme in reaching the OOSC are witnessed in its characteristics and design which include a flexible education model; use of compressed/accelerated and context suited curriculum; admission of the overaged; certification and main streaming of completers as well as cost effectiveness. Up to five (5) AEPs have been funded and implemented by international development organisations in Nigeria since 2014 till the time of writing this note. These interventions have witnessed a remarkable enrolment and resulted into post intervention transition of OOSC back into the formal education system, proving a viable education innovation for reaching OOSC. Given the behemoth population of the OOSC, a state-led scaling-up of this intervention with dedicated funding from the government is therefore necessary for an appreciable nation-wide impact.
Increased and improved educational infrastructure and resources, over-crowded classrooms are an indicator of insufficient educational infrastructure to accommodate enrolled learners. The Joint Education Needs Assessment (JENA) report for 2021, shows that across the three states of Borno, Adamawa,
and Yobe (tagged BAY), one in four schools share infrastructure. The average number of students per classroom in BAY states is 124, very high, considering also that just 60 percent of teachers have some form of qualification and 14 percent are volunteers. It says this situation leads to poor quality of education. Also, where there are no adequate seats and tables for learners or perpetual teachers’ absence, parents tend to withdraw their children from school. The gains from the educational interventions that encourage enrolment should therefore be sustained by the provision of classrooms, furniture, toilets and sanitary facilities, potable water, etc.
“The comfortability of these infrastructures
is also important. This implies that classrooms should be adequately ventilated; and furniture should be comfortable to sit upon for the learners. Sensitisation on the importance of education. It is necessary to sensitise and re-orientate the people on the importance of education, particularly girls’ education. Both a government-led effort through its agencies such as the National Orientation Agency and advocacies by the Civil Societies are crucial to realise this. Also, advocacy should be conducted on the passing of the Child Rights Act (2003).
Furthermore, a blend of economic interventions for households in societies where poverty is prevalent, child labour is often rampant. An economic intervention such as Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) has often been used to incentivise enrolment. However, this sort of intervention has not always
been sustainable, making it a short-term solution. In other words, beneficiaries of this intervention tend to drop out of school when the cash transfer programme stops. For a long-term impact, this intervention should be combined with conditional economic empowerment programmes for households who would commit to support their children’s education if empowered. By setting up the households with viable income generating activities, they can sustain their children in school via these sources of income.
Besides, learning activities can only take place in a safe and secure environment. The federal government and affected states need to improve on the security infrastructures necessary to protect schools. Gender based violence and child molestation
in the school environment should also be prosecuted leveraging available legal framework for child rights protection and safeguarding. Where schools are located in security sensitive environments, the Save-Our-Souls (SOS) system of emergency response should be made available to alert the security personnel in case of an attack. In the northeast, where attacks on schools are rampant, the location of security posts within the schools would serve as a deterrence.
In conclusion, investigation showed a combination of demand and supply barriers to educational access has led to and continues to contribute to the astronomical number of OOSC in Nigeria. Both governmental and non-governmental efforts are necessary to tackle
the current situation. To successfully do this, the exploitation of education innovations such as AEP combined with other conventional interventions such as rebuilding and expanding of infrastructure, more enrolment sensitisation, economic intervention, improved security, as well as legal enforcement would be a holistic approach. As access to education is tied to various factors like socioeconomic status, ethnicity, geographic region, and other factors beyond the control of households, the population of OOSC is spread unevenly across the country. Therefore, interventions and the type thereof must be applied across the country based on the gravity of the situation, with the most affected populations.
