CEM REPORT | Out of school children in Nigeria will return to school this year.
This is according to the British charity, IA-Foundation, who is offering scholarships to 50 out-of-school children in the country.
This is an ongoing initiative of the group to tackle the crisis in the education sector in Nigeria.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of IA-Foundation, Mrs Ibironke Adeagbo, the group had been at the forefront of putting out-of-school children back to schools.
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Talking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, she said the group had taken up the challenge of paying school fees of indigent and vulnerable kids in some communities in the Lagos area since 2019.
“Ordinarily, this students would have been out-of-school but we identified them and pay their fees at reputable primary and secondary schools in Nigeria.”
Adeagbo, while urging the Federal Government to prioritize education, as a means to fight poverty, called on local and international partnerships, to help kids lacking education to further reduce the number of out of school children, helping them become useful to the country in the near future.
“We appeal to individuals, corporate and government at all levels, to pay attention to the increasing number of out-of-school children numbers in Nigeria as it poses a serious challenge now and in the future,’’
IA-Foundation has since 2019 taken up the issue of out-of-school children in Lagos, taking deprived children back to classrooms.
The Foundation also have been tackling various challenges, including; lack of access to portable water in the run-down community in Makoko, Yaba, Lagos.
According to UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, about 18.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria
