Centre advocates harmonised data on out-of-school children

The Centre for Girls Education Zaria has appealed for a harmonized data of out-of-school children and described the worsening figure of out of school children in northern Nigeria as politically exaggerated.

Hajiya Habiba Mohammed, Director of the centre disclosed this in an interview with newsman in Zaria.

Recall that the United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that 18.3 million children in Nigeria are out of school.

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The director said the data are mostly not realistic as it keeps fluctuating; and most of the figures vary; stressing that there is no authentic data base on practical assessment.

“We have issues with data when it comes to issues of out of school children particularly in Kaduna State; many institutions issued data that was different from what is obtained on the field.

“One of the projects the centre was implementing for Gates Foundation made the centre to go into communities to search for these out of school children, especially girls.

“From my experience and the work we do; I believe the number of out of school children is exaggerated,” she said.

Mohammed said what they found was that most of the girls were enrolled into schools especially in areas that were close to schools.

She added that when you want to get out of school children you have to go to hard to reach areas of the state.

The director said the centre was working with the government and key stakeholders in the sector towards ensuring that these cohorts living in hard to reach areas were enrolled and encouraged to stay in school.

Mohammed also appealed to the government and development partners on the need for a comprehensive data of enrollment rate, retention rate and graduation rates of the students.

“With this we will be able to have a better picture of the out of school children in our area,” she said.