10.5m children out of school in Nigeria – UNICEF

Jean Gough, Country Director, United Nations
International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has
said that no fewer than 10.5 million Nigerian
children are out of school. Gough stated this
on Tuesday in Bauchi while exchanging views
with Gov. Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi
State at the Government House.
She said that UNICEF was collaborating with
some stakeholders to strengthen the newly-
introduced Quranic School System to reduce
the number of out-of-school children. She
disclosed that the fund had concluded plan to
tackle the issue of child malnutrition in the
state as it had discovered that 90 per cent of
child diseases was as a result of malnutrition.
Gough also announced that UN body would
curb public defecation, especially with more
than 2,000 communities in the state
defecating in open places. “We intend to
ensure that before I leave the country, at least
one local government area in Bauchi state is
public-defecation free.
“We will also work in collaboration with the
state government to boost water and
sanitation towards the supply of adequate
and portable drinking water. “I will, therefore,
want to appeal to the state government to pay
its counterpart fund to enable us execute
some of the projects,” she said.
In his response, Gov. Abubakar promised that
the state government would renew all
counterpart funding arrangements it had with
donor agencies. Abubakar assured that he
would ensure that the funds were paid on
monthly basis to enable the state to benefit
from some of the projects.
He said that the government would
collaborate with UNICEF to ensure that one
local government area became public-
defecation free to improve the public health
status of the state.

Source: Vanguard