…to ensure enrollment of 14m out-of-school children
By Tom Okpe
The House of Representatives is working on a framework that will lift 16.5m people out of poverty and ensure that over 14 million out-of-school Nigerian children are back to schools in the northern part of the country.
The framework, which is in form of an intervention through the House Committee on Alternative Education, chaired by Rep Almustapha Ibrahim Aliyu, (APC, Sokoto) will also see that children are trained with relevant skills to become productive members of the society.
The intervention by the Green Chamber, under the leadership of the Speaker, Rep Tajudeen Abbas, targets addressing public education by tackling poverty and value gaps.
In partnership with relevant government agencies, the intervention aims at improving access to education for all Nigerian children in line with the aspirations of Sustainable Development Goals, (SDGs-4) on qualitative and inclusive education for all.
According to a statement on Sunday by Musa Krishi, Speacial Assistant to the Speaker on Media and Publicity, the project, tagged: “Nigeria Mass Reduction of Out-of-School children and Youth Project,” (NiMPROP) is proposed to last for a period of four years.
“It would significantly reduce the number of of out-of-school children through non-formal accelerated education system and other alternative schooling programmes, according to Rep Aliyu.
“The government agencies that the committee is working with, include the National Commission of Almajiri and out-of-school children, the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education and the National Commision for Nomadic Education.
“The committee is also working assiduously to ensure that 16.5 million Nigerians are lifted out of poverty, which will ensure, return of out-of-school children to schools.
“Already, the Committee had several engagements with the relevant agencies in the past week with favourable responses from them.
“Necessary machinery has been put in place for the actualization of the intervention as the House gets set to reconvene from its annual recess on Tuesday.
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“Part of the initiative is to ensure significant reduction of poverty in the six geopolitical zones of the country,” Aliyu said.
Based on the statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, (NBS), the Northeast leads in the poverty index with 71.86% of its population in poverty, followed by the Northwest with 64.84 percent, while the North Central has 42.70 percent.
Others are: South East, 42.44%; South South, 21.28% and South West, 12.12%.
The intervention however, targets reduction of poverty as follows: Northeast, 4 million people; North West, 3.4m people; North Central, 2.5m; South East, 3m; South South, 2.1m, and South West, 1.6m.
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