The Federal Government on Tuesday pledged its readiness to mop up over ten million out-of-school children from the streets to classrooms by 2027.
The Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, disclosed this when he paid an official visit to the newly inaugurated headquarters of the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children (NCAOOSC) in Abuja.
Sununu said that despite conflicting data on the number of out-of-school children, the Federal Government would see to it that the number was reduced to the barest minimum.
According to him, reducing the number will enable the country to a have better literacy rate and the citizens can contribute meaningfully to the growth of the country, adding that stakeholders must work through a multifaceted and multi-dimensional approach to make history.
“Data has been our challenge in this country but we have a working data ranging from 10.2 million to 20 million out-of-school children.
“Whichever one, though we also have constraints of challenge as regards financial resources but the work plan of the commission itself is huge.
“We will base our data on the Universal Basic Education Commission’s (UBEC) data of 10.2 million.”
“We intend that in the next four years, we will be able to mop-up 2.5 million children back to school, each year.”
“And also hoping that in the next four years, we should be able to take all the out-of- school children in the country or 50 per cent of the 20 million data,’’ he said.
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