By Felix Khanoba
The National Personnel Audit’s report on public and private basic education schools in Nigeria says boys account for about 62 per cent of the over 10.19 million out of school children in the country.
The report which was put together by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and launched by the Federal Government late last year, said the out-of-school burden was found to be borne more by boys after the projected population of 6-11 years old was weighed against the number of in-school children.
“The boys’ figure of 6,340,621 constituted 62 percent of primary age children without access to primary education. The girls’ contribution of out-of-school-children was 3,853,297 and about 38 per cent of the total.
“It could also indicate that the campaigns for parents, especially in the northern states, to allow their daughters to attend and complete primary school had started yielding results,” the report said.
Giving a further breakdown of the number of out-of-school children, the personnel audit report said Kano State with 989,234 has the highest number of children not in school while Yobe State has (43 percent) has the highest proportion of children out of school.
“In three of the least performing states (Yobe, Taraba and Zamfara states) four out of 10 children were out of school. In six other states (Sokoto, Borno, Rivers, Plateau, Benue and Nasarawa states) one out of three children was not in school for primary education.
“In nine states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Kogi, Niger, Jigawa, Ebony, Bayelsa, Edo, Osun and Ogun states) one in four children was out of school…., only four states and FCT had less than 20percent of their primary school age children out of school. The four states were Anambra-15 percent), Imo-17 per cent, Ekiti-17 percent and Lagos-19percent,” the report said.
