– Nigeria’s former minister of education, Professor Fabian Osuji, has expressed displeasure over rising population of out-of-school children in the country
– Osuji, who blames federal government for this, says it is shameful to have 13.2 million out-of-school children
– He said resource and opportunities were mismanaged
The federal government has been blamed for rising population of out-of-school children in the country by a former minister of education, Professor Fabian Osuji.
According to Osuji, poor management of funds and failure on the part of the federal government to implement existing laws are the reasons Nigeria has about 13.2 million out-of-school children, Punch reports.
TRACK NEWS gathers that Osuji stated this during the 12th national conference of the Academy of Management Nigeria on Wednesday, October 25, in Abuja.
The ex-minister said: “It is shameful that Nigeria still has 13 million children out of school after passing several laws on education reforms and failing to implement them.
“It is a poor commentary that Nigeria has 13.2million children out of school. It is shameful. It is mismanagement of resources and mismanagement of opportunities. When I was a minister in 2004, we presented a bill to the National Assembly which was passed, making primary education free and compulsory throughout the federation. That was the law in the country. In other hands, children must go to school and parents did not have to pay.
“But in 2018, how come we are still talking about millions of children out of school and on the streets? That is a failure on the part of parents and on the part of government at all levels.
“The law has been forgotten. The federal government is now saying that there should be a state of emergency in the education sector because we have failed. This is the same government that had asked the parliament to pass this law in 2004 asking education to be free and compulsory for the first nine years of every Nigerian.
“There would be six years of primary and three years of junior secondary. As a nation, we have forgotten the laws we passed in 2004 and nobody is asking questions; our memories are short.
“Our problems are the problems of management and our failure is the failure of management. For us to be poor or to be counted as one of the poorest in the world means that Nigeria has not been able to manage its vast resources appropriately.”
TRACK NEWS previously reported that the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) said Nigeria was losing out on a literate and skilled workforce it needed to grow economically due to a huge number of out-of-school children.
The deputy representative, UNICEF Nigeria, Pernille Ironside, stated this on Wednesday, October 10, in Kaduna, at the opening of a two-day Northern Nigeria Traditional Leaders Conference (NNTLC) on out-of-school children.
