The number of out-of-school children in the North-East region of Nigeria has decreased from over three million to two million. This report is according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
UNICEF stated this at the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Accelerated Funding (GPE-AF) project for the North East states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe.
The GPE-AF project, which aims to improve educational access for 1.5 million out-of-school children in the region, is credited with leading the progress, according to the chief of UNICEF’s Borno Field Office, Gilmar Teddy Cruz.
He said the GPE-AF project builds on the successes of the previous GPE Accelerated Funding (AF) 2020–2023, which enhanced learning outcomes and education access for over 180,000 conflict-affected children across 24 local government areas in the states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe.
“We are pleased to see a decline in the number of out-of-school children in the North-East. Our partnership with the Ministry of Education has provided a conducive atmosphere to address the learning crisis, and we will continue to work together to solve this problem,” he said.
He went on to say that education stakeholders from the governments of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, in collaboration with UNICEF, met to discuss the project’s objectives and implementation plans.
A representative of the Borno State government, Professor Bulama Kagu, said, “We have policies in place to address the issue of out-of-school children, and we have succeeded in reducing the numbers, although we still face challenges.”
The commissioner of education for Adamawa State, Dr. Umar Garba, stressed that education is essential for children’s future success.
According to him, the state government is running enrollment programmes aimed at parents and kids to persuade out-of-school youth to go back.
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