UNESCO’s estimate is flawed, according to the FG, which claims that only 2.8 million children are not in school.

Yesterday, the Federal Government refuted a study from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that claimed Nigeria has one of the highest rates of out-of-school children worldwide. Nigeria has 20 million out-of-school children due to the problem of insecurity and kidnapping of schoolchildren, according to a report published by UNESCO last month.
However, yesterday at the annual summit of the Education Writers Association of Nigeria (EWAN), Director of Senior Secondary Education for the Federal Ministry of Education, Hajia Binta Abdulkadir, refuted this claim. She said that initiatives taken by the government, including the Basic Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA), among others, have helped to significantly lower the alleged 20 million figure.

Mallam Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, was quoted by Abdulkadir as saying that only 2.8 million schoolchildren are not attending.

The country’s security crisis has had a cascading effect on Nigerians’ literacy rates because the insurgency also destroyed 497 classrooms and left 2.8 million students in need of support for education in an emergency.
Tokunbo Wahab, the Special Adviser on Education for Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, solicited cooperation in tackling the issues causing students to leave school.

The theme, “Towards Safe Schools in Nigeria,” was chosen to emphasize the significance of stakeholder safety in schools, according to EWAN Chairman Mojeed Alabi.

Meanwhile, the Kibaku Area Development Association (KADA), popularly known as the Chibok Community, claims that the government has abandoned the over 100 schoolgirls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists in the Northeast eight years ago.
The community said that the government has abandoned them, especially their children who were kidnapped from school, by releasing the final victims of the Abuja-Kaduna train incident last week.

In 2014, dozens of terrorists invaded the Chibok girls’ boarding school and loaded 276 students, who were then between the ages of 12 and 17, into trucks. They claimed that 110 of their daughters are still missing after the mass kidnapping of their daughters in April 2014, during which 57 managed to escape (on their own).