National Commission for Nomadic Education says the issue of out of school children has been one of the major challenges in the implementation of Nomadic Education programs in Nigeria.
Executive Secretary of the commission, Professor Bashir Usman announce this in Kaduna at the orientation workshop for staff of the commission on strengthening the capacity of members of school based management committees and mothers associations on combating out of school children in the North West Geo- political zone of the country.
He said out of the estimated 18.5 million out of school children in Nigeria, 3.5 million are from the Nomads background.
Professor Bashir Usman represented by the Director of quality assurance of the commission, Mr. Akin Akinyosoye explained that the commission therefore adopted various strategies to ensure that these high population of Nomadic children return to schools.
He added that one of such strategies is this workshop to build the capacity of members of school based management committees(SBMC), and Mothers Associations (MA) to serve as foot soldiers in boosting the effort of the commission towards reducing the number of out of school children in their communities.
The Executive Secretary further said the workshop was also aimed at educating the participants on their roles and responsibilities for ensuring effective and efficient management of Nomadic schools.
Professor Bashir Usman said at the end of the workshop, participants were expected to be alive with their responsibilities of creating a working synergy between schools, communities, local government Education authorities(LGEA), traditional rulers, Civil societies, state Education authorities and all other stakeholders towards the development of Nomadic schools throughout the country.
He however stressed that adequate sensitization and mobilisation campaigns by the commission, the enrollment of Nomadic children in schools have increased tremendously from 594,230 in the year 2015 to 1,214,186 in 2022.
Professor Bashir Usman said more so the expansion in the number of Nomadic schools across the 36 States and the FCT have increased from 3,939 in 2015 to 4,375 in 2022.
He therefore appreciate the support of the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu and the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission,UBEC, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi for their unflinching support to the commission of achieving the desired goals in educating the Nomadic children in Nigeria.
He also urged all nomadic groups in the country to embrace Education as it is the key to National development.
Abdullah AbdulMalik