Stakeholders in the education sector across the four states of the North-West region converged on Katsina on Thursday to deliberate on ways to address the issue of out-of-school children in their states.

The two-day regional stakeholders meeting, which commenced in Katsina, brought together participants from Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa and Kano.

The UNICEF Kano Field Office organised the meeting in collaboration with the four states.

Azuka Minkiti, an education specialist with UNICEF Nigeria’s Abuja Office, said the meeting was to identify areas where the participating states needed more interventions on the issue of out-of-school children.

According to her, the meeting is to build a collective commitment to reduce the number of out-of-school children in the states and improve school enrollment, retention, transition, and completion.

She recalled that UNICEF had in 2021 worked with the Federal Ministry of Education and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to develop a National framework of action on reducing out-of-school children in Nigeria.

“Now we are looking into this framework and getting states to develop models to address the high number of out-of-school children in their states.

“That’s what we are doing today, and tomorrow, we are going to focus on school enrollment, retention, transition and completion of both primary and secondary education,” Ms Minkiti said.

Mairo Othman, the permanent secretary of the Katsina State Ministry for Basic and Secondary Education, said that about 7,300 teachers were recently recruited as part of efforts to address the menace.

“To create new learning spaces in secondary schools, the government, through the AGILE project, is constructing 75 secondary schools across the state, and another 75 are coming in 2025.

“Recently, the foundation for establishing one special school in each of the three senatorial zones in the state was laid, with state-of-the-art facilities, to create a suitable learning environment for the children of the less privileged,” she said.

Also, the Kano State Commissioner for Education, Umar Haruna-Doguwa, said the administration would soon declare a state of emergency in the education sector.

According to him, the state government is trying to integrate the Tsangaya schools into the formal education system as part of its commitment to ending the out-of-school menace.

Haruna Musa, the Jigawa Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) chairman, said the state government is passionate about establishing integrated Tsangaya centres to address the issue of out-of-school children.

“We also want the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) to own those schools so that they would be able to ensure that the children are going to school,” he said.

Salisu Lawal, the director of planning, Kaduna State Ministry for Education, revealed that the state government had received loans and grants to build more schools.

He said this was to ensure that children had more access to them and were provided with quality education.

The participants, including lawmakers and other critical stakeholders, admitted that the rate of out-of-school children in that part of the country was alarming and unacceptable.

They agreed, ”There is the need for all the stakeholders to put hands on deck to support the government at all levels, to reverse the trend.” 

(NAN)