UBEC to halve Nigeria’s 10m out-of-school children

Dr Hamid Bobboyi, the UBEC’s executive secretary, has stated that the Universal Basic Education Commission is working feverishly to decrease the country’s 10 million out-of-school children to zero.

Bobboyi made this statement at the Lagos Business School during a training and capacity-building session for executive chairs of state and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Universal Basic Education Boards.

According to UBEC data, the number of out-of-school children aged 6-11 will fall from 9.6 million in 2021 to 9.5 million in 2022. In 2018, this figure was 10.2 million.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has collected global data on children between the ages of 6 and 18 who are not in school. This data shows that Nigeria has about 20 million children between 6 and 11 who are not in school.

To clarify the preceding information, Bobboyi noted that UNESCO has adopted a new methodology with the Sustainable Development Goal in mind and that many people still do not get the concept of “nature” or how UNESCO arrived at the figure of 20 million out-of-school children.

He argued that the only thing that has to be done to decrease the number of children who are not in school is for the government to “make a push” to do so. “UBEC has its statistics and has provided them to UNESCO,” he stated.

Bobboyi, while pointing out difficulties in the field, has urged the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), and other key stakeholders to work together per their respective mandates to advance the sector.