Nigeria may be losing about 1.4 million pupils to transition from primary six to Junior Secondary School (JSS) one every year.
Senior Education Manager, UNICEF Field Office Kano, Mr. Michael Banda, who made this known during a recent three – day Media Dialogue on Girls’ Education in Katsina, disclosed that based on year 2020 statistics, most of the 1.4 million children that dropped out at that point in the education system were girls.
Banda, who is also Girls Education Project Three (GEP3) manager, revealed that no fewer than 1.9 million children left the education system between primary one and six in the same year.
He equally noted that more girls were enrolled into schools from primary one to six but at JSS1, gender parity showed more girls dropped out of schools than boys.
According to him, Enugu State had the least drop out rate of 0.2% followed by Anambra, Imo and Ekiti States with 0.4% each while Abia and Osun States recorded 0.5% and 0.6% respectively. This is as Bayelsa, Ebonyi and Delta States posted 0.7% each.
However, eight states: Kebbi, Jigawa, Sokoto, Yobe, Bauchi Katsina, Niger and Kano -account for whopping 56% of the total drop out from the education system in the year under reference.
Mr. Banda said banditry, insurgency, communal clashes and climate change in the North East, North West and North Central were a major hindrance to access to basic education in the affected states.
He lamented that Nigeria still recorded more out Of School Children than any country across the globe, adding that one in three children in Nigeria is out of school.
According to him, 15% (about 18.3m) of the global Out Of School Children were in Nigeria just as one in two out of school children in West and Central African region were in Nigeria.
Although the rates are declining but faster population growth rate is making many families unable to train their children, he posited.
According to UNESCO, UNESCO IIEP and Federal Republic of Nigeria 2020 records, 2.9% of children aged 6 – 11 left school, while 7.1% of children aged 12 -14 left school and 20.0% of children aged 15 – 17 dropped out of school in the year under review.
Mr. also stated that international experts such UNICEF and Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) of United Kingdom, sponsors of the media dialogue on girls education, had provided more evidence on effectiveness of their key interventions aimed at reducing the drop out rate and out of school children in Nigeria
