The out-of-school syndrome in Nigeria – strategies, approaches and impact for educational planning

THE issue of out-of-school-children (OOSC) is one of the major challenges towards the attainment of Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In 2000, in Dakar, 189 countries including Nigeria resolved to provide access to all children of school age by the year 2015 and reduce by half illiteracy among youths and adults.

This gave birth to Six Goals of Education for All. In similar vein, the resolution of the World Forum on achievement of Eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education (UPE) aims, that all children of school age in the member countries enrol and attain ‘free and compulsory primary education by 2015’.

However, the Education for All Global Monitoring Reports (2011) states that “half the world’s out-of-school children live in just fifteen countries: 10.6 million in Nigeria, 7.3m in Pakistan, 5.6m in India, 2.7m in Ethiopia, 1.2m in Niger, 1.1m in Kenya, 1.0m in Yemen, 1.0m in the Philippines, 0.9m in Burkina Faso, 0.9m in Mozambique, 0.8m in Ghana, 0.7m in Brazil, 0.7m in Thailand and 0.5m in South Africa. Also, out-of-school-children numbers in Nigeria rose by 1.4 million from 2004 to 2007.

Thus, from the International perspective, Nigeria ranks highest despite its efforts at meeting the International Assessors point of view.

Furthermore, according to a UNESCO study in 2012, an estimated 61 million children of primary school age are being denied their right to education worldwide. Nigeria alone accounts for an estimated 10.5 million. These dismal figures are 3.6 million more than in 2000, or 42 per cent of the primary school age population. The gloomy statistics is coming less than a year to 2015, the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals in education.

The Education-For-All project, an off-shoot of the MDGs began in 2000 with the UNESCO World Education Forum. At the turn of the millennium, leaders from over 164 countries made the EFA pledge to drastically reduce global illiteracy by providing basic education to all children of school age by 2015.

Definition of out-of-school children (OOSC)

Defining out-of-school children encompasses a wide range of realities and refers to children who do not have access to school in their communities.

Do not enrol despite the availability of a school.

Enrol but do not attend school.

Drop out of the education system.

Do not have opportunity to transit from lower to upper basic education, (meaning primary to JSS and JSS to SSS).

The Conceptual and Methodological Framework (CMF) developed by UNICEF as part of the Global out-of-school children (OOSC) initiative conceptualized out-of-school children in terms of five dimensions of exclusion, these are:

• Children of pre-primary school age who are not in pre-primary or primary school (three to six years), that is, school age but not in school.

Children of primary school age who are not in primary or secondary school or attended but dropped out (primary age six-11 years)

• Children of junior secondary school age who are not in primary or junior secondary school (12-14 years)

Children who are in primary school but at risk of dropping out (any age), they could also be drop out of primary school.

• Children who are in junior secondary school but at risk of dropping out (any age), they are also refers to drop out of junior secondary school.

Factors responsible for Increasing population of out-of-school children (OOSC)

Reasons are often related to issues of poverty, cost, policy, management, the school environment and culture, traditional beliefs and practices. Studies in Africa and other parts of the developing world have identified two major groups of factors. These are generally referred to as: demand and supply factors. These contribute to children not in school when they are supposed to be.

Demand- side obstacles and supply – side obstacles as presented below:

Demand obstacles

[a] Social-economic factors

Poverty

High cost (fees, uniform, transportation, levies,)

High opportunity cost/low rates of returns

Children needed for household /agricultural/petty trading tasks (child abuse)

Residence in remote, sparsely populated areas

Limited employment opportunities for school leavers

Lower employment opportunities and remuneration for women

[b] Cultural factors

Parents low level of education

Lower priority for girls at home

Western education perceived as incompatible with traditional/cultural beliefs and practice

Early marriage and pregnancies

Skeptical attitude towards the benefits and outcomes from educating girls

Wrong interpretation of religious injunctions

Child substitution and truancy

Constant migration (pastoralists, migrant fisher folks, and migrant farmers)

Environmental realities.

Supply obstacles

[a] Political/Institutional Factors

Budget constraints

Inadequate political will

Inconsistency in educational policies

Teacher factor (number and quality)

Non-adaption of educational contents to local learning needs

Insurgency/ insecurity

[b] Factors link to school

Limited school classrooms

Payment of school fees

Low proportion of female teachers

Teachers non sensitive to gender issues

Gender stereotypes in curricular and textual materials

Gender discrimination

School curricular and school organization in conflict with traditional culture

Insecurity

School calendar incompatible with occupational cycle e.g farming, herding, fishing etc

Lack of school feeding facilities

Lack of role model especially for the girl child.

Distance to school

Difficult terrain.

Education as a basic right

Education is considered as basic human right vital to personal and societal development and well-being. Education is both a human right in itself and a necessary means of realising other human rights. (Mason 1999) Basic Education is regarded as a fundamental right of every child. The principle of education as a fundamental right has its origin at resolution 2174 (III) of 10th December 1948, General Assembly of the United Nations which adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration proclaimed education as a fundamental right in its article 26, which states:-

• Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

• Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial and religious groups, and shall further the activities of the united nations for the maintenance of peace.

• Parents have the right to choose the kind of education to be given to their children.

Convinced of education as a birth right of every child, and Nigeria being a signatory to World Conventions and Declarations on Rights of the child, Nigerian Government entrenched compulsory basic education for every child in the following national documents:

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999;

National Policy on Education (1998 Section 1; subsection 5(c) emphasized:

“the provision of equal access to educational opportunities for all citizens of the country at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels must be ensured.

Universal Basic Education Commission Acts 2004,

National Commission For Nomadic Education Act, 2004

National Commission for Mass Literacy Adult and Non-Formal Education Act 1990,

Ministerial Directions,

National Council on Education Directives.

Demonstration of commitments from the Nigerian government

In order to show government commitments in the compulsory Universal Basic Education For All, it established relevant agencies with adequate human and material resources to justify the commitment. The agencies include;

Universal Basic Education Commission(UBEC)

National Commission For Nomadic Education(NCNE)

National Mass Education Commission (NMEC)

These are apart from what the various ministries of education at federal, state and local government levels are contributing in form of policy directions and frame works.

Government ensuring inclusive basic education

Basically inclusive education means caring for all and not few, boys, girls and physically challenged including literacy programmes for youth and adults.

In doing these, governments at all levels engaged the following strategies rooted in sound framework.

Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Strategies:

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) introduced some strategies aimed at achieving its set goals and objectives. The Almajiri Education programme was introduced by Government after a survey research on the dominance presence of Almajiri Children revealed that Nigeria has more than nine million Almajiri children with about 90 per cent domiciled in the northern part of the country.

Following this revelation by the Ministerial Committee on Madrasah education, the Federal Ministry of Education accepted the report and set up a National Implementation Committee on Almajiri Education Programme under the Chairmanship of a renowned educationist, Prof. SAS Galadanci to ensure the integration of these Almajiri children into basic education.

Progress so far on Almajiri education programme

The programme, which dates back to 2010, has developed relevant framework, guidelines, customized instructional materials and free uniforms. It has also supported the construction of many almajiri schools that are of three models, namely: model one, model two and model three respectively.

Model I – Is modeled in a way of providing additional structure to existing traditional Quranic Schools called (Shangaya).

Model II - Is to accommodate Almajiri children from a group of shangaya forming a cluster.

Model III - Is to strengthen Islamiya schools mostly found in the southern part of Nigeria.

It has been argued that these wonderful efforts would have been a huge success if provisions were made for free feeding and payment of stipend to (Islamic Instructors) Mallams in-charge of the various Almajiri Schools. Arising from the fact that, these children find their way to the streets for the purpose of soliciting for what to eat after intensive learning period.

In spite of this, many mallams have been trained in formal school subjects and they teach in their Qur’anic Schools, not just the Quran but also formal school subjects. The breakthrough in this regard is that the graduates from the Qur’anic schools now have knowledge and skills in mathematics, English Language, Basic Science, Social Studies and Life Skills, in addition to ability to recite the Quran. The on-going integration has therefore the potential of eliminating or considerably reducing dropping out from school, and the dehumanizing street begging. It is hoped that the pool supplying the Almajiri in Nigeria would dry up and the incidence of Almajiri would stop.

Girl-child education programme

This is another programme targeting full enrolment of girl child in our schools.

Under this programme dedicated girl schools have been and are still being constructed in all parts of the country to ensure that barriers to enrolling girls are completely removed.

This programme again could better be enhanced by providing parents with life improvements skills including literacy making them realize the importance of education, thereby supporting the education of their children especially the girl child.

Provision of sanitary facilities to respond to girls demand for sanitation, will also add value to the efforts.

The boy-child education

As part of the efforts of UBEC to provide inclusive education to all, the boy child also received dominant attention.

Based on a need assessment survey conducted by a ministerial committee on the Boy Child, Eleven Technical and Vocational Education Centres are now under construction in the eleven states of South-South and South-East geo-political zones of the country to ensure the integration of the out-of-school boys into the school system.

The nomadic education efforts

In line with the mandate of the Commission, continued efforts are in place to ensure that more than 3 million out-of-school nomadic children including pastoralist, migrant fisher folks, and migrant farmers are brought into the school system.

Realizing the fact that these are groups of children that live in a very difficult terrain and hard to reach and frequently relied upon by their parents as economic tools, variety of approaches are put in place to ensure that they are captured.

These include Face-to-Face Interactions, Distance Learning Education using the Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI), Integrated Approach in Model Centres, Skills Acquisition, as well as Mobile Collapsible Classroom Structures.

These efforts have yielded results as we now have in our schools more than five hundred thousand pupils in nomadic schools across the country. But the fact still remains that we have a long way to go, if we are to mainstream these children into the basic education programme.

Sensitization and mobilization strategy carried out by the commission assisted significantly on enlightening the parents.

As part of the efforts to involve all in the education of the nomadic children, “Don Makiyaya A Ruga”, 30 minutes radio programme was one of the success stories, because both adults and youths listen to the programme where issues relating to importance of education are discussed.

The Commission will, at the beginning of the next school session launch its ‘Radio School’ in six pilot States of Bayelsa, Kaduna, Gombe, Plateau, Enugu and Oyo

National Mass Literacy Education Commission efforts (NMEC)

This is another Basic Education Commission with the mandate of providing literacy skills to more than 50 million non-literate youth and adults.

This is important as studies have established that literate parents are better positioned to support the education of their children and wards.

A major priority of this Commission with the support of UNESCO is the strengthening of adult literacy institutions and literacy facilitators across the country. Currently, most adult literacy institution as well as personnel across the country have benefited from the Federal Government’s One Billion Naira fund-in-trust with UNESCO.

These efforts would have been more result oriented if hundreds of facilitators trained are fully engaged to train illiterate youth and adults.

The introduction of Distance Learning through the use of radio programmes is also another strategy adopted to reach out to the target beneficiaries.

The recent pilot intervention of Procter/Gamble in the use of ICT to literacy promotion in Nasarawa and Rivers States are quite in the right direction.

Impact of the efforts

Impact of the efforts so far:

• Measuring the impact on effort so far will pose a challenge as attempt has not been made to carry out a survey on impact. We need to know how many children we have been able to integrate back into the basic education system since the efforts, through the various strategies put in place by the basic education agencies.

• Secondly, a tracer study on transition from primary to junior secondary and from Junior Secondary School to Senior Secondary School need be conducted to know what has been the transition rate.

What we need to do

Without mincing words, Nigeria has developed adequate policy towards basic education for all, but implementation agencies, national development strategies as well as the development partners intervention need re-energizing and re-appraisal.

For us to have full enrolment in Almajiri Education Programme, we need to adopt Food and Cash Transfer (FCT). Also, an Act of National and State Assemblies as found in States like Adamawa and Kano where already Almajirianci has been outlawed. No Almajiri child must be found along the street. Again states should further provide food and basic education to them wherever they are found in the state.

Feeding programme as practiced in Kano and Osun States should be made a national policy, as it is difficult to find children roaming or hawking in states where school feeding is in practice.

All barriers to free access to schools should be diagnosed and removed to ensure that all children of school age are enrolled and adequate infrastructure are put in place to ensure 100% transition from Primary to Junior Secondary School, from Junior Secondary School to Senior Secondary School.

Concerted efforts should be geared for the education of the nomads in order to achieve the bench marks of Education For All and Millennium Development Goals through inter-sectoral collaboration and partnerships.

To drastically reduce illiteracy, the Mass Literacy Commission should source for funds to ensure that trained facilitators are engaged in teaching adults. Development partners particularly under the Global Partnership for Education should endeavour to cover and support all states with high population of OOSC in Nigeria, so as to achieve both EFA and MDGs basic education related goals.

Finally, the practice whereby Development Partners support few communities in few states rather than whole should give way to mass support.

Conclusion and policy recommendations

Nigeria may not likely meet the EFA target, not even in 2025, as the EFA report revealed. There has been quite an impressive list of initiatives to address the demand and supply side barriers and bottlenecks impeding the attainment of EFA and the MDGs in the country, but these have yielded mixed results. The initiatives are being carried out by a wide variety of agencies, with little synergy among them and so very little dividend. Efforts to fast track the elimination of the OOSC phenomenon, as a route towards attaining EFA and the MDGs would require concerted and urgent efforts along the following lines:

• Overarching national/sub-national development guidelines that seriously address the challenge of poverty, to take care of a factor that has been identified as the number one bottleneck to having access to basic education.

• A strategic re-focussing of the UBE programme (at national and state levels and to some extend LGAs level), with OOSC as a corner stone and paying specific attention to the demands and needs of the people.

• Dedicated funding that adequately addresses the challenges.

• Scaling up of the special initiatives by all partners (such as the integration of the Quranic schools under the Almajiri Education Programme, Girls’ Education Project Initiatives and the Nomadic Education Programme), and in particular, initiatives addressing the challenge of Geographical/National disparity.

• Addressing the gender challenge from both ends: special attention to Girls’ participation along with responsive programmes on boys’ dropout in the South-East.

• Establishment of a functional coordinating mechanism among all actors to enhance synergy and reduce multiplication of disparate interventions.

• Policy dialogues to address the question: “Why have previous strategic intervention not quite succeeded”, as a way of avoiding past mistakes and re-conceptualising and refining strategies for responding to the challenge of OOSC.

Concluding poser

Is it not time we conduct a survey of our children in both public and private schools (inclusive of Islamiyya and Quranic schools where basic education is already integrated) in Nigeria to know the actual population of our children in school with a view to have accurate data of out-of-school children rather than relying on international oriented data?

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