Hindi Livinus
The Minister of Education, Professor Mamman Tahir, has revealed that the Federal Government will soon address the scourge of out-of-school children in the country.
He made this known in Yola, Adamawa State when he paid Governor Ahmadu Fintiri a visit at the government house on Thursday.
According to the minister, the issue of Almajiri children had assumed a national scourge, adding that it has been widely reported by the United Nations Children’s Fund and other UN agencies that the country has over 20 million out-of-school children.
Tahir noted that he received the marching order from the president to address the scourge and that there are plans to roll out policy initiatives that would have it addressed.
He, however, sought the cooperation and collaboration of the government at the sub-national levels to successfully implement a planned programme meant to tackle the out-of-school phenomenon.
He said, “There are lots of programmes coming up that will require our working together, especially at the basic education level. The President has said that out-of-school children should be a priority of his government. He has also said clearly that he expects the states to come together and work with the FG to address this national scourge.
“Already it is a national scourge and we can’t allow it to continue to grow. In the days and months to come, we will be coming up with a whole range of policies that would require some level of cooperation, collaboration and contact between the FG, the states and other players within the basic educational sector, so that we can frontally address this problem.”
Governor Fintiri in his remarks applauded the Tinubu administration for taking steps, clearly aimed at fostering industrial harmony in the tertiary educational sector while pledging the support of his government to any initiative that would help to address the out-of-school children menace.
Fintiri said since the advent of his administration, he had done everything possible to address the issue and that this has led to a massive reduction in the number of out-of-school children from over 500,000 to a little less than 100,000.
The governor, however, said his administration welcomed the FG’s commitment to tackle the scourge and promised to urge other governors to support the minister, who is an Adamawa indigene to succeed in his position.
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