Nigeria now has 6.9m out-of-school children – Minister

He said that massive enrolment had taken place recently and attributed the feat to collaborative efforts between the Federal and state governments.

“At my 2020 annual ministerial briefing, I informed the press that we have reduced the number of out-of-school children from an estimated 13 million to 6.9 million.

“May I inform you that we have further recorded an impressive enrolment in the last one year, especially in some of the frontline states—Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa, Taraba, Rivers and Ebonyi States.

“This achievement has been largely due to the activities of the Better Education Service Delivery for All(BESDA) and the cooperation of state governments.

“Our only setback was that occasioned by COVID-19 and insecurity, birth rate and other factors,’’ he said.

He said that while the government was taking students off the street into schools, insecurity was sending some others from schools into street.

The minister said that the Federal Government was working assiduously to further reduce the number of out-of-school children to a more manageable level.

Adamu said that efforts were also being made to improve access to basic and secondary education.

“Next is access to basic and secondary education.

“In order to expand and guarantee access to quality basic quality basic and secondary education, we have established additional six federal science and technical schools across the geo-political zones in the country bringing the number of unity colleges from 104 in 2015 to 110 now.

“And we have increased the total carrying capacity of our unity colleges within the period, that is from 2014 when it was 161, 274 to date when it is 177, 274.

“The process of establishing five new federal science and technical colleges has already commenced,’’ he said.

He said that at the assumption of office in 2015, the administration articulated a blueprint tagged, ‘’Education for Change: A Ministerial Strategic Plan’’ which was inaugurated in 2016.

According to Adamu, it is a policy of the Federal Government that every state of the federation should have at least one federal university.

He said that in 2022, the Federal Government had already established three new polytechnics bringing the total number to nine from 2020.

“This administration has ensured that all the states of the federation had a federal university and a polytechnic by establishing nine universities and six colleges of education between 2018 to date.

“What is more, we are more determined to ensure that all these tertiary institutions take off on a sound footing,’’ he said

Adamu said that his presentation was anchored on seven thematic areas—education policy, data planning, infrastructure development, service delivery, human capital development, access to quality education, job creation and industrial relations.