‘More children out of school in Nigeria than in war-torn Ethiopia, Congo’

According to a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), there are a staggering 20.2 million children in Nigeria who are not enrolled in school under President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to a report posted on the UN agency’s website on Thursday, Nigeria alone is responsible for more than 20 million of the estimated 244 million out-of-school children worldwide, or more than 10% of the total.
According to the statistic, Nigeria has more unschooled children than other war-torn African nations like Ethiopia, which has 10.5 million of them, Congo, which has 5.9 million, and drought-stricken Kenya, which has only 1.8 million.

An accompanying statement by UNESCO’s Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, noted that sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the most children and youths out of school, with a total of 98 million children with Nigeria churning up about 47 percent of the figure.

“It is also the only region where this number is increasing: out-of-school rates are falling more slowly than the rate at which the school-age population is growing.

“Important data gaps have been filled in countries that have large out of school numbers but where no administrative data of good quality has been available for over a decade, such as Nigeria which has an estimated 20.2 million children and youth out of school, Ethiopia (10.5 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (5.9 million) and Kenya (1.8 million),” the UNESCO chief said.

“In view of these results, the objective of quality education for all by 2030, set by the United Nations, risks not being achieved. We need a global mobilization to place education at the top of the international agenda,” Azoulay added.