The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on Tuesday, noted that out-of-school children are a big problem affecting Nigeria as a country.
The President of Senate further stated that the challenges are not only social but security problems to the country.
Senator Lawan stated this in his remarks on a motion titled “The Need to Integrate Almajiri Education into Modern System of Education in Nigeria’, sponsored by Senator Adamu Aliero representing Kebbi Central Senatorial District.
Lawan in his statement said, “We all know that the out-of-school-children are at the moment a big problem to us as a country.”
“They constitute not only social problems but also security problems to some extent.”
“Therefore, it is our responsibility to do whatever we can to ensure that they are enrolled in primary and secondary schools.”
Senator Aliero while speaking noted that over the years, the Federal Government of Nigeria had made efforts to reduce lawlessness on our streets by introducing the Universal Primary Education (UPE) Scheme in 1976, and re-introduced the Universal Basic Education (UBE) in September 1999.
The lawmaker that the Almajiri movement was covered by the UBE Act 2004, for the purpose of provision of basic education.
He added, “We have more than 14 million out-of-school children, most of them being Almajiri roaming the streets of our major cities in Nigeria begging for alms and food.”
Aliero commended the Goodluck Jonathan administration for embarking on the project by building Almajiri integrated model schools in which these children were enrolled and given Islamic and western education.
But he lamented, “some of the structures are either laying fallow or put into uses other than what they were originally intended for and some of the facilities in the Almajiri Model Schools are already decaying as they have never been put to use.”
