The Nigerian government has revealed that the number of out-of-school children in the country reduced to 6.9 million in 2020.
It attributed this development to its efforts at funding basic education in the country through the World Bank funded Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) programme.
Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, disclosed this on Thursday at the 2021 annual press briefing in Abuja.
The number of out-of-school children as at 2019, according to government data was over 10.1 million.
EduCeleb.com cannot immediately confirm if the government took the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown last year into account in arriving at its new figure.
Adamu revealed that the Federal Government has secured a World Bank credit facility of $611 million to support the government in strengthening the Universal Basic Education as well as address the first pillar of Ministerial strategic Plan on out-of-school children.
“So far, we have launched the BESDA in ten states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Ebonyi, Kano, Kebbi, Oyo, Yobe, Niger and Zamfara,” Adamu said.
“As today, we have recorded impressive school enrolment figures in 17 states of the federation where BESDA is being implemented. I can however tell you that through the BESDA initiative, we have reduced the figure of Out of School Children from 10.1 million since May last year down to 6,946,328.”
On the revitalization of the teaching profession policies, Adamu said, “Let me say that there will be no uniform take-off date for all the policies.
“However, without pre-empting the work of the committees, I would like to indicate the take-off for the following policies: Retirement age, January 1, 2022 and 40 years of service, January 1, 2022.”
According to him, the effective dates of other policies will be announced subsequently after the submission of the report of the national coordinating committees.
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