Stakeholders Want FOI Bill Passage, Education Policies Implementation

Education stakeholders in Kwara State have called for passing of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill and the implementation of education policies recommended by the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN).
Making the appeal in Ilorin, the stakeholders said one of the major challenges of educational development in the State was non-implementation of education policies by the government.
The event, which was organised by the Centre for the Study of Economies of Africa (CSEA) in collaboration with Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) and African School of Economics, was aimed at engaging stakeholders that would inform and engender participation in educational development processes.
The Director of Research, CSEA, Dr Adedeji Adeniran, in his presentation titled ‘Understanding the Education crisis in Nigeria’, said statistics showed that one out of every 10 out-of-school children globally is a Nigerian.
He also said 60 per cent of out-of-school children in Nigeria are girls, adding that 50.8 per cent of children aged five to 17 are involved in child labour.
Adeniran continued that children were not just out of school, but that those in school were also not learning as a result of the effects of crises such as civil war, Boko Haram insurgency, conflicts and COVID-19.
The Director stated that inequality in education as a result of disparity and access to schools determined how much people attended schools.
“There is a learning crises in the nation, more than 30 per cent of children are out of school in the North Central of Nigeria, while we have 730,000 classroom deficit; lack of quality classrooms, lack of basic facilities to aid proper learning.
“It may also interest us to know that according to statistics only 12 per cent of school children are proficient in reading and writing after six years of learning in Nigeria.