The federal government through the ministry of The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouk, has declared out-of-school children as nationwide epidemic.
The minister said the conclusion was drawn as an aftermath of its inspection of some southern states.
She also noted that said the problem of out-of-school children was not peculiar to the North.
Farouk presented a detailed report of the activities of her ministry, stating that over 10 million out-of-school children earlier believed to be domiciled in the North are spread across the country.
She cited a recent survey in the Makoko area in Lagos, Enugu and Jos, adding that there were about 7,000 such children in just Makoko alone.
Giving specifics on behalf of the minister, the Coordinator of the National Social Investment Programme, Umar Bindir, said, “Some people here, if you talk about out-of-school children, they think you are talking about Almajiri in the North. Some people think it’s actually religious or a Muslim thing. But I can tell you that we have established it as a national issue in this programme.
“We sent a team to Lagos. They went to Mokoko; they met 7,000 out-of-school children picking things from the dirt. The guys returned shaking. We sent another chap to Jos; he returned shaking also. We sent another guy to Enugu, and for the first time, everybody realised that the out-of-school children issue is a national problem.”
On how the government’s school feeding programme has impacted on the number of out-of-school children, the minister said the initiative has only increased school enrolment, that the sheer number of out-of-school kids was a national problem.
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