Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, has claimed that the number of out-of-school children in the state has dropped from 2.3 million to 700,000.
He stated this during the two-day Bauchi State Education Summit held at the Hajj Camp on December 18 – 19 to analyse the state of education in the state.
In his half-hour presentation, the governor claimed that under his watch, the state recorded tremendous success in education, stating that the number of out-of-school children had dropped from 2.3 million in 2018 when he became a governor to about 700,000 thousand.
He said, “We have so far leveraged the number of out-of-school children from 2.3 million in 2018 when I took office to merely 700,000.”
However, the governor did not clarify whether the number was agreed upon after the recent assessment or on what basis they arrived at the figure.
CLAIM: Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, claims that the number of out-of-school children in the state is 700,000.
VERIFICATION: Last week, the Bauchi State government in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) commenced mapping of out-of-school children to ascertain the actual number of children that are not attending school.
The Officer in Charge of UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, Adams Clement, said the mapping would enable the state “to know the actual number of children that are out of school, for effective planning. The mapping is a comprehensive household survey for out-of-school children towards actualising the state’s strategic plans to reduce the number and rate of out-of-school children”.
“The main objective of conducting the enumeration is to identify the actual number of school-age children who are not attending school. This will help us to understand the reasons why they are not in school so that we can come up with strategies to get them back to school,” he said.
The UN organisation trained 325 enumerators and 40 supervisors, spread across all the 20 local government areas of the state for the task.
In September, Bauchi Governor Bala Mohammed, in no specific figures, stated that Bauchi State ranked among states with the highest number of out-of-school children in Nigeria.
CONCLUSION: The number of out-of-school children in Bauchi State as 700,000 is baseless and cannot yet be confirmed from any statistical data or studies from the state government or any international agency.
VERDICT: So, the claim by Governor Bala Mohammed that there are 700,000 out-of-school children in Bauchi State is false.
