By Shindong Bala
The Federal Government has urged state governments across the country to domesticate and implement inclusive education laws and policies to drastically reduce the number of out-of-school children.
Minister of Education, Mr. Tunji Alausa, made the call in Kaduna at an advocacy and stakeholders’ engagement meeting on reforms in Almajiri, non-formal and out-of-school education.
Represented by his Special Adviser on Almajiri and Out-of-School Children, Mallam Balarebe Shehu Kakale, the Minister said the Federal Government had introduced transformative policies aimed at ensuring that every Nigerian child is returned to school and provided with opportunities to learn in dignity, safety and welfare.
He explained that the policies were anchored on five major pillars, including foundational literacy and numeracy, vocational and technical education, digital education, civic education and the integration of Almajiri and other non-formal education systems into mainstream education.
According to him, the Federal Ministry of Education was seeking stronger vertical and horizontal coordination between federal and state agencies working in the education and out-of-school sectors to eliminate duplication and fragmentation in interventions.
The Minister called on states to domesticate the National Commission on Out-of-School Children Act as well as relevant national policies on Almajiri education, non-state schools and other non-formal learning systems, taking into consideration the peculiar educational challenges of each state.
He also stressed the importance of reliable data in tackling the out-of-school challenge, saying the Federal Government was developing a digitalised education management information system through which every child, school, teacher and infrastructure gap would be identified and tracked.
Mallam Kakale said the initiative would enable government to monitor children from enrolment and retention through their academic progress, thereby ensuring that education policies and interventions were based on verifiable and up-to-date data rather than estimates.
Earlier, the Kaduna State Coordinator of the Reaching Out-of-School Children Project, ROOSC, Mr. Ezra Angai, said Kaduna State was already at the forefront of implementing laws and policies aimed at addressing the out-of-school challenge.
Mr. Angai said the state had conducted a comprehensive mapping exercise which identified about 187,912 out-of-school children, representing a significant decline from the approximately 535,000 children identified when the ROOSC Project commenced in 2023.
He said the Kaduna State Government had responded proactively to the challenge through the ROOSC Project, with interventions designed to return affected children to school and improve their access to quality education.
Also speaking, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Education, Professor Abubakar Sani Sambo, said the state had aligned with the Federal Government’s education reforms and was implementing policies aimed at integrating Almajiri education into the formal school system.
Professor Sambo said the reform would enable children in the Almajiri system to acquire formal education and skills, sit for basic education examinations and progress to secondary and tertiary education.
He expressed appreciation to the Federal Ministry of Education for choosing Kaduna as the first state for the advocacy visit, saying the state was ready to demonstrate its interventions as a model for other states to emulate.
The engagement brought together more than 20 categories of stakeholders, including Alaramas, non-formal school proprietors, Islamic scholars, civil society organisations and federal and state education agencies.
The team later embarked on field visit and verification exercise to ROOSC intervention Schools and learning centers in Hayin Banki, Tudun Wada, Badarawa and Ungwa Mu’azu all in Kaduna
Editing By Godwin Duru
