By Christiana Ekpa
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, has revealed how the 10th House will address the problem of out of school children in the country.
Speaking through a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Musa Krishi in Abuja, the Speaker the House of Representatives is set to launch a new initiative to tackle the problem of out-of-school children in Nigeria using “alternative schooling”.
According to the statement, the framework, which is in the form of an intervention through the House Committee on Alternative Education, chaired by Almustapha Aliyu (APC, Sokoto), will also see the out-of-school children trained with relevant skills to become productive members of society.
He said the project is tagged ‘Nigeria Mass Reduction of Out-of-School Children and Youth Project’ (NiMPROP), and it is proposed to last for four years.
The statement added that: “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.
“It would significantly reduce the number of out-of-school children through the non-formal accelerated education system and other alternative schooling programmes.
“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 Commission for Nomadic Education.”
He said the necessary machinery has been put in place for the actualisation of the intervention as the House gets set to reconvene from its annual recess on Tuesday.
“Part of the initiative is to ensure the significant reduction of poverty in the six geopolitical zones of the country.
“Based on the statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the North-east leads in the poverty index with 71.86 per cent of its population in poverty, followed by the North-west with 64.84 per cent, while the North-central has 42.70 per cent. Others are South-east, 42.44 per cent; South-south, 21.28 per cent and South-west, 12.12 per cent.
“The intervention targets the 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.”
The House is set to reconvene on Tuesday after eight weeks of annual recess.
