By Obike Ukoh,
When Ebonyi was created in October 1996, it was the only state in southern Nigeria that fell into the league of educationally disadvantaged states.
The pioneer military administration initiated policies to lift the state out of illiteracy. But when Gov. Sam Egwu mounted the saddle as the first civilian governor, he declared free compulsory primary and secondary education.
Ebonyi also established its own university and college of education. In spite of the policies initiated to boost education, regrettably a recent UNICEF report listed Ebonyi among the 17 states in Nigeria having the lowest school enrolment.
Also, a recent survey carried out by some educational institutions indicate that there are more pre-school children out of school than those attending classes in Ebonyi.
This index was arrived at by the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 2011) in collaboration with UNICEF, National Bureau of Statistics, National Household Demographic Survey (NHDS 2013) and Education Management Information System (2011) of Ebonyi Ministry of Education.
According to the survey, only 43 per cent of Ebonyi pre-school children are currently attending any form of organised school system, while 57 per cent are out of school.
Worried by the development and to boost enrolment, the Ebonyi Government in collaboration with Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and World Bank, recently launched the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA), for out-of-school children in Ebonyi.
Gov. Dave Umahi said that the best way to safeguard the future of individuals, their children’s future and have a peaceful “evening’’ is through education.
The governor also stressed that good education will also preserve the future of children.
Dr Hamid Bobboyi, Executive Secretary of UBEC, commended Umahi for ensuring that education was the best business in the state.
“The governor has also seriously funded education in the state as he offset the state’s three years counterpart funds of UBEC, and also embarked on massive educational infrastructure development,” he said.
He noted that issue of out-of-school children had been a major problem in Nigeria as the 2015 survey put the figure at 13.5 million.
“Latest surveys, particularly in 2017 gave it as 10.8 million and the national personnel audit which UBEC undertakes discovered that the number has reduced to 10.1 million.
“These numbers should, however, not comfort us, but worry us, as there is no reason a country like Nigeria should have such number of out-of- school children,” he said.
Prof. Gidado Tahir, National Project Coordinator of BESDA, said the project was funded by the Federal Government through a credit it offered as grants to affected states.
“Education for out-of-school children is anchored on a simple operation and mechanism and seeks answers to three fundamental questions.
These include: “How many children is a state able to bring to school, is the state able to keep these children in school and are these children acquiring learning of high quality?”
Dr Steve Odoh, the Commissioner for Education, said that the state government would continue to collaborate with stakeholders in the education sector to sustain the ongoing campaign against low school enrolment in the state.
Odoh restated that Ebonyi was among the 17 states in Nigeria listed by UNICEF as having the lowest school enrolment.
He said that the bring back out-of-school children campaign must be sustained in order to achieve the goal of the campaign.
Odoh noted that an uneducated person would become a menace and security threat to the society in future, adding that no effort would be spared in ensuring that every Ebonyi child received the best education at affordable cost.
He said: “The issue of bring back out-of-school children is a reaction to our low school enrolment rate; and when we talk about enrolment, we are looking at the number of children we enrolled into our basic education.
“Seventeen states have been identified as having challenges with child enrolment into the basic education; Ebonyi is among the states, and the only state in the South-East, this is not a good record for our state.
“So, it is our responsibility as stakeholders, as concerned parents, traditional rulers, council chairmen and councillors, to think of a permanent solution to the challenges.
“The issue is not what the governor will tackle alone; it needs our collective intervention, a concerted effort by all stakeholders to ensure that by September, when the new academic session begins, that we can change the narrative.
“No matter what we do as a ministry or what the governor does as a government, the children are with their parents; and hence, their sense of responsibility must be brought to bear on this initiative to ensure sustainability.”
Odoh insisted that the campaign would focus on building stronger synergy with the stakeholders to ensure that children of school age were not allowed to hawk on the streets or taken to Onitsha or Lagos to serve as house helps when they should be in school.
“We don’t want our children to hawk anymore; taken to Onitsha or Lagos to serve people. We don’t want our children to go to farm, while they should be in the classrooms.
“The truth is that we don’t want what is happening in some parts of the country to start happening in our state because, if we do not educate the children now, they will become security threat to society tomorrow,” the commissioner noted.
Chief Hyacinth Ikpo, the Chairman, Ebonyi Universal Basic Education Board (EBSUBEB), said that Ebonyi Government was making every effort to ensure that all children of school age living in the state, but are not in school were taken back to school.
He also reiterated that an uneducated child is a potential danger to the society, stressing that all efforts must be made to ensure that education was made not only accessible but also affordable to every citizen of the state.
The EBSUBEB boss said that there was no accurate statistical data of the number of school age children who are out-of-school, but noted that government had set machinery in motion to come up with reliable statistics.
“We don’t have for now any reliable data of the number of out-of-school children in Ebonyi, but government has mapped out programmes and strategies to know the number who are out-of-school and get them back to school.
“Part of the strategy is the setting up of committees at the 171 wards in the state.
“And part of the assignment of the committees, especially at the ward level is to go from house to house, conduct census of number of children in a particular household, how many are of school age, who are not in school,” Ikpo said.
He explained that at the end of the exercise, we will be able to know how many children who are of school age that are not in school and how to get them back to school.
“As a responsible government, we will not spare any effort to ensure that we provide functional and qualitative education to all the citizens of the state,” Ikpo said.
He added that the out-of-school children taken back to school would enjoy scholarships, free school feeding, uniforms and other incentives.
“Under the programme, government will provide school uniforms, exercise books, text books as well as free school meals to the children,” Ikpo said.
