Reps unveil plan to enrol 14m children in school
The House of Representatives has unveiled a plan to return 14million out-of-school Nigerian children back to school.
The project which is tagged ‘Nigeria Mass Reduction of Out-of-School children and Youth Project’ (NiMPROP) is proposed to last for a period of four years.
In statement by the Special Adviser on media and publicity to the Speaker, Musa Kirirshi on Sunday in Abuja, the Speaker noted that the intervention by the Green Chamber also targets addressing public education by tackling poverty and value gaps.
The framework, which is in form of an intervention through the House Committee on Alternative Education, chaired by Rep. Almustapha Ibrahim Aliyu (APC, Sokoto), will also see the out-of-school children trained with relevant skills to become productive members of the society.
In partnership with relevant government agencies, the intervention aims at improving access to education for all Nigerian children in line with the aspirations of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs-4) on qualitative and inclusive education for all.
It would significantly reduce the number of of out-of-school children through non-formal accelerated education system and other alternative schooling programmes, according to Rep Almustapha Aliyu.
The government agencies that the committee is working with include the National Commission of Almajiri and out-of-school children, the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education and the National Commission for Nomadic Education.
Similarly, the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has reported that no fewer than 333 million children across the world live in abject poverty.
The report titled ‘Global Trends in Child Monetary Poverty’ done in partnership with the World Bank noted that most of the affected children are in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America among others.
Speaking on the development, Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva, the Global Director for Poverty and Equity, World Bank, said, “A world where 333 million children live in extreme poverty – deprived not only of basic needs but also dignity, opportunity or hope – is simply intolerable. It is more critical than ever that all children have a clear pathway out of poverty – through equitable access to quality education, nutrition, health, and social protection, as well as safety and security. This report should be a stark reminder that we have no time to lose in the fight against poverty and inequality, and that children must be foremost in our efforts.”
The report was based on three international poverty lines: $2.15 (extreme poverty), $3.65 (lower middle income), and $6.85 (upper middle income), and took into consideration developments from 2013 to 2022.
The estimates show that: The extreme child poverty rate was reduced from 20.7 per cent to 15.9 per cent between 2013 and 2022. While 49.2 million children were lifted out of extreme poverty, this was about 30 million less than projected in the absence of COVID-19-related disruptions. The extreme child poverty estimate in 2022 (15.9 percent) is on par with the child poverty rate in 2019, indicating approximately three years of lost progress.
“The analysis contains records from 10.4 million individuals from 147 countries, taken from the 2022 spring version of the Global Monitoring Database (GMD) with 2019 as a base year. The GMD is a collection of globally harmonised household survey data compiled by the Data for Goals group of the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice.
“Poverty estimates for 2020, 2021 and 2022 have been ‘nowcasted’—that is, gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates have been used to forecast household incomes, assuming all households experience equal consumption growth in percentage terms.
“The international poverty lines were updated in 2022. The three poverty lines are: $2.15 (extreme poverty), $3.65 (lower middle income) and $6.85 (upper middle income).
“Approximately 333 million children globally survive on less than US$2.15 a day, 829 million children subsist below a poverty line of US$3.65, and 1.43 billion children are living on less than US$6.85 a day,” the report said.
