As the harvest season for various crops progresses, pupils in some rural communities in Bauchi state are being engaged in farms, during school hours, adding to the state’s burden of out of school children and educational backwardness.
Bauchi state currently has the highest number of out of school children in Nigeria, accounting for over 1.2 million out of the 13.5 million out of school kids mostly in northern part of the country.
The kids are mostly engaged in the collection of farm produce such as ground nut, beans, firewood and soft brooms known as Tsintsiya or Furai in the local Hausa language.
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Such kids could be seen in almost all parts of the state, especially in agrarian communities going to farms between 7:00 and 9:00am on school days; some drive on trunk ‘A’ roads that link the state with other parts of the country.
From 17th of September, 2019 to the date of publishing this story, WikkiTimes captured dozens of pictures of school aged children in many locations across the state either going to farm, or already working in various farmlands.
Aged from 4 to 16yrs, the kids were seen in many communities on Bauchi-Kano and Bauchi Maiduguri roads going to farms with various rubber and metal containers, as well as nylon sacks and local farming tools in groups going to farms.
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Most of the school age kids are females, thereby compounding the state’s problem of low enrolment, retention and completion of schools among girls.
The United Nations Children’s Fund had in 2011 rolled out the third component of the Girls Education Project where 1 million extra girls were to be enrolled into schools in five northern states of Bauchi, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara.
Under the programme, each of these five states would have enrolled 200,000 girls into schools, but it is not clear how much success has been achieved so far.
However, the scenes captured by WikkiTimes over the last two weeks have shown that, school going age girls especially in rural areas are far from being covered by any educational intervention.
Of the numerous pictures captured by WikkiTimes, the one close to Nabayi village in Ganjuwa local government area was more striking and disturbing.
Our camera lenses captured a father in his late forties along with three daughters aged less than 4yrs (supposedly his biological children) going to farm early in the morning.
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The present administration of Governor Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed had declared education a top priority, promising to turn around the fortunes of the sector
