About 10.5 million children out of school

Federal Government yesterday released its scorecard of educational achievements for 2012 and estimated that a total of 10.5million children of school age are not yet exposed to basic education in the country.

The report released by the Federal Ministry of Education in conjunction with some of its parastatals also indicated that majority of the affected children are from the northern part of the country and are mostly girls.

Government also listed a number of shortfalls encountered in basic education delivery in the year under review which were teacher quality, inadequate classroom furniture, libraries, laboratories and relevant text books among others.
In the scorecard, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) revealed that among 1.6million candidates who applied for admission into tertiary institutions in 2012, only 218,324 eventually got admission offers into various institutions.

Further statistics also revealed that a total of N44, 100,207,962.60 set aside as Universal Basic Education (UBE) matching grants between 2005 and 2012 was un-accessed as at December 31, 2012.
Meanwhile, Minister of Education, Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, at the report presentation which held at the National Universities Commission (NUC) yesterday called for private sector participation in the commercialization of research products churned out from tertiary institutions.
She emphasized that such partnership would boost the nation’s economy through employment opportunities for the youths and by extension reduces the importation of similar products from other countries.

Her words: “Over the years, we have been aware that pockets of innovations exist in our educational institutions. The challenge has been that of bringing these out to the public domain through commercialisation so that they can serve the interest of society.
“The ultimate advantage of commercializing is that it would help enhance the nation’s competitive standing globally as a nation”.

The Nationonline