The Federal Ministry of Education has dismissed some social media reports claiming that Bauchi state has the highest number of out-of-school children numbering 1,239,759.
Mr Ben Goong, Director, Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, on Friday.
Goong said the information was published by some unscrupulous elements bent at destroying the reputation of the ministry and hence such information should be discarded.
“ This story claiming the number of out-of-school children is fake. How can Bauchi have this number? What will now be the number of those in school? It will be a good thing if the government can control social media.
“ People just derive pleasure in churning out what is not true. The fact that we have rights does not mean we should dish out stories that are untrue,” he said.
NAN reports that a story of out-of-school children was published on Aug. 24 by an online research report using graphical representation to illustrate the figures from the different states.
The report claimed that Bauchi state has the highest figures of 1,239,759, followed by Katsina with 873,633 and Kano with 837,479, while Edo state has the lowest number of out-of-school children with 79,446.
It would be recalled that the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, had said that the number of out-of-school children in the country, which stood at 10.1 million in 2019, had reduced drastically to 6.946 million in 2020.
Adamu, who disclosed this, at one of the Ministerial press briefings attributed the development to a number of measures undertaken by government to ensure enrollment of children.
He said the sum of $611 million credit facility secured from the World Bank to support Universal Basic Education (UBE) had recorded a massive enrollment of out-of-school children in 17 states.
Adamu had also disclosed that efforts of the National Association of Proprietors and School Owners of Nigeria (NAPSON) alone saw to the enrollment of one million children.
He had also said that 900,000 Nigerians were “taken off the shelve” of adult illiterates in 2020.
The minister said more out-of-school children would be enrolled in school in 2021, with a $500 million loan secured from the World Bank to drive the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) programme.
He said this was in a bid to ensure girls were taken off the streets, trained and empowered to live normal and quality lives.
According to the minister, so far, we have launched the BESDA in ten states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Ebonyi, Kano, Kebbi, Oyo, Yobe, Niger and Zamfara.
“We have recorded impressive school enrolment figures in 17 states of the federation where BESDA is being implemented.
“I can, however ,tell you that through the BESDA initiative, we have reduced the figure of out-of-school children from 10.1 million since May 2019, down to 6.946, 328 million”, presently. (NAN)
