Nigeria’s Minister of State for Education, Mr Chukuemeka Nwajiuba has said that Nigeria has more than 10 million out-of-school children, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.
Nwajiuba made this known in Dutse, the Jigawa State capital at the launch of a programme named Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) by the Jigawa State Government this Thursday.

“With an estimated 10,193,918 children out of school, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“For us to address these challenges adequately therefore, we must strengthen the quality of basic education in Nigeria by confronting head-on those factors that deny our children access to basic education,” the minister said.

Nwajiuba therefore urged stakeholders to strengthen the quality of education by addressing factors that denied children access to basic education. He described as unfortunate current challenges affecting the educational system in the country.

According to him, the BESDA programme is designed to give better life to all children by increasing equitable access for out-of-school children, improve literacy and strengthen accountability for results at the basic education level in the focus states.

The minister noted that the programme focuses on 17 states, which include the entire 13 states of the Northwest and Northeast geographical zones as well as Niger, Oyo, Ebonyi and Rivers states.

He added that the selection of the states was based on the prevalence of the number of out-of-school children in the states.

“Permit me to state here that BESDA programme became effective on Jan. 22, 2018, with the commencement of implementation processes at the federal level.

“All key activities at the Federal level to kick start implementation of the programme by focus states have been concluded.

“Each beneficiary state is therefore, expected to commence implementation in line with the specific steps and guidelines provided under the programme.

“You will agree with me that there is nothing to cheer about if a single child is out of school, instead of being in the classroom learning.

“So it is in this regard that ensuring the out-of-school children are back to school and learning.

“Learning is not only a moral and legal obligation, but also a productive investment that will guarantee the future of our children and ensure that their rights are protected as enshrined in the Child’s Right Act of 2003,” the minister said.

On his part, Gov. Muhammad Badaru of Jigawa said in a bid to increase equitable access and quality delivery in basic education, he has embarked on massive recruitment of  teachers and that in 2018 1,393 teachers were recruited.

Badaru said screening was ongoing for the recruitment of 4,000 teachers on J-teach.

He said that his administration has from 2015 to date constructed and renovated 6,679 classrooms, bought 5,963 teachers’ furniture, 185,086 three-seater sets of pupils’ furniture and 1,922 double deck beds.

“We have also constructed 634 hand water pumps, 254 staff houses, 4,746 toilet cubicles, 8 hostels, 516 Islamiya blocks and six admin blocks in our primary schools,” the governor added.