48% Of Out-Of-School Girls In Nigeria From North East, North West – UNICEF
More than 50 percent of girls in Nigeria are not attending school at the basic education level, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.
Jutaro Sakamoto, education manager at UNICEF disclosed this in Abuja at the education conference organized by the French Institute in Nigeria.
He said 7.6 million girls were out of school in Nigeria – 3.9 million at the primary and 3.7 million at the junior secondary level.
Sakamoto also said 48 percent of out-of-school girls were in the North West and North East, adding that gender parity in net attendance ratio was below 1.0 in 10 states, primarily in the North, but is decreasing in 15 states.
According to him, 9 percent of the poorest girls attend secondary school, compared to 81 percent from the richest quintile.
While lamenting that Nigeria accounts for 15 percent of out-of-school children globally, Sakamoto said, “If we can’t address the situation in Nigeria, we can’t solve the situation in the world.”
He said those who going to school were not being taught well as a result of lack of facilities, adding that UNICEF’s Education Opportunity for Out of School Children (OOSC) project had been able to make some impact.
