The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced a significant achievement in the North East region of Nigeria, the number of out-of-school children has decreased from over 3 million to 2 million.
Gilmar Teddy Cruz, Officer-in-Charge of the UNICEF Borno Field Office, shared this news during the launch of the Global Partnership for Education Accelerated Funding (GPE-AF) project in Maiduguri on Wednesday.
Cruz attributed the positive change to the successful implementation of the GPE-AF project, which is focused on providing education to 1.5 million out-of-school children in the North East.
Cruz highlighted that the GPE-AF project builds on the successes of the previous GPE Accelerated Funding (AF) initiative, which ran from 2020 to 2023.
This earlier project significantly improved access to education and learning outcomes for more than 180,000 children affected by conflict across 24 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states.
“We are pleased to see a decline in the number of out-of-school children in the North East,” Cruz stated. “Our partnership with the ministries of education has created a conducive atmosphere to address the learning crisis, and we will continue to work together to solve this problem.”
To further discuss the objectives and implementation plans of the GPE-AF project, education stakeholders from the governments of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, along with UNICEF, convened a workshop.
This workshop emphasized the importance of enhancing collaboration and coordination among all parties to ensure the project’s effective implementation and to improve education outcomes for children in emergency situations in North-East Nigeria.
Professor Bulama Kagu, representing the Borno Government, commented on the progress, saying, “We have policies in place to address the issue of out-of-school children, and we have succeeded in reducing the numbers, although we still face challenges.”
Dr. Umar Garba, the Adamawa State Commissioner of Education, stressed the importance of children being in school for the future of the country.
He mentioned that the Adamawa state government is actively conducting enrollment campaigns aimed at encouraging out-of-school children to return to the classroom.
These campaigns target both children and their parents, seeking to emphasize the importance of education.
The reduction in the number of out-of-school children in the North East is a testament to the effective collaboration between UNICEF, government authorities, and other stakeholders.
This partnership has been instrumental in addressing the educational crisis in the region, offering hope for continued progress and better education outcomes for children in Nigeria.
