Over 16 million children across the country have been said to be out of school.
The Head of Department, Library and Information Service, Rivers State University (RSU), Professor Blessing Esuru Ahiauzu, revealed this at the 67th Inaugural Lecture of the institution, penultimate wednesday.
Delivering her lecture on the topic The Voice of Knowledge Managers: Library Service, Knowledge Applications and the Society’ , Ahiauzu noted that majority of Nigerian children numbering over 16 million are out of school, regretting that these children who are yet to be enrolled in school have been considered as nuisance by the society around them.
Ahiauzu, who described librarians as the managers of information and knowledge said they have the responsibility of reducing the number of these street children through the promotion of reading culture among them.
The veteran librarian said”, there are so many children in this country who are out of school. They are yet to be enrolled. In 2006, there were seven million of them. In 2017, they were 13 million and in 2019, they were 16 million of these children”.
“We see these children as nuisance and we clear them as we clear our wastes. But they are our children. You and I have roles to play and we can achieve this by promoting reading culture among these children, introduce books to them and that way, a child can be rescued”, she said.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Nlerum Sunday Okogbule described librarians as experts who manage information for the benefit of the society.
While noting that the library was a very important section in the university community, Okogbule maintained that it had contributed immensely to the advancement of the institution saying”, research without the library is nothing”.
Highlights of the occasion include citation on the inaugural lecturer, presentation of the lecture monogram: ‘Anthology In Library and Information Science’, by the former governor of Rivers State, Sir Celestine Omehia, among others.