Examining causes of out-of-school children in Oyo State

Stakeholders in Oyo State have expressed dissatisfaction on how school-age children are distracted from school enrolment by many factors, raising a concern that the development may render many youths unproductive.

They describe as worrisome the UNICEF report that one in three children is out of school across the country and more than 50 per cent of girls are not attending school at the basic education level.

Investigations on UNICEF’s claim in Oyo State show that out of no fewer than 500 students that might enroll at the Junior Secondary School (JSS) arm of a school in Ibadan, no fewer than 300 students would complete the third term with more males than females dropping.

Stakeholders attribute some of the causes of dropouts to social vices and lack of effective monitoring in the education sector.

Schools in some communities in Ibadan, including Yemetu, Mokola, Ikolaba and Basorun, decry high rate of dropouts, although the school administrators say the enrolment is ongoing for all the classes.

The investigation also shows that there are cases of parents with wards in private schools withdrawing them to attend public schools to save costs.

According to some teachers, they have adopted the nomenclature –Early School Leavers — rather than referring to them as drop-outs because they believe some of them can return during major examinations while some will never.

A teacher in a school at the Yemetu community, Mrs Yemisi Alao, stated that more boys were out of school than girls in the state.

“There are joints where they smoke cannabis (Indian hemp) and participate in internet fraud. You will see these children dressed in school uniforms, but they will never enter the school,’’ she said.

Alao also said that some of other factors “are illiteracy, poverty and ignorance; even girls are also affected.

“Others are dysfunctional homes and family relocation to new sites where there are no schools in the immediate community’’.

Another teacher in a school at the Mokola community of Ibadan, who pleaded anonymity, said that 95 per cent of the population in the school is males that drop out than females.

She lamented that the “present economic hardship in the country has negatively impacted the number of students who come to school.

“Some students now come to school on empty stomachs, and we have seen increased cases of students fainting in school because they had no breakfast before coming to school’’.

The senior teacher explained that in Oyo State, boys were out of school than girls and records in the school registers could validate the claim.

“Many of the students, when you search their bags, you will see mufti dresses because they go to various apprentice shops to learn and that is giving us a lot of problems as they don’t do school assignments.

“They learn trades such as tailoring, mechanics, plumbing and phone repairs, among others.

“I was asking for a student in a class and his mate said he was not in school and that he comes once a week because he is learning how to be a fraudster’’.

Another teacher, Mrs Elizabeth Eigbe, noted that children from broken homes made up a huge percentage of out-of-school children.

“Some of these children stay with relatives or grandparents who couldn’t cater for them the way biological parents would do,’’ she said.

A parent, Mr Yemi Osanyin, said that “religion is one of the drivers of out-of-school children’’, calling on other parents to efficiently cater for their wards.

Osanyin that said if Nigerians would practise religion as laid down in the holy books, there would be no children without formal education.

Another parent, Mrs Modupe Olusolape, said that the “government must ensure that its monitoring mechanism is working to implement its educational policies and not lay all the blame on parents.

“This is not to absolve parents from doing their responsibility but if the system is strengthened parents would sit up,’’ Olusolape said.

Stakeholders allege that the Gender Responsive Education Sector Plan (GRESP), a national policy instrument that provides a long-term vision for the education system in the country which could respond to out-of-school children’s situation is non-functional in the state.

But the Oyo State Chairman, the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Mr Raji Oladimeji, said that the state “is at the stage of formulating GRESP with collaboration from development partners’’.

Though he noted that the government has done so much to reduce the number of out-of-school children, something fundamental must be done in that regard.

According to him, the state has the highest number of out-of-school children in the south-western part of the country before due to the nature of the city where there are so many ethnic groups residing in Ibadan.

“If you go to Sabo area of Ibadan, you will see these young boys who are supposed to be in school, roaming on the streets and this is something to worry about.

“Apart from that, the indigenes are shying away from taking responsibility for the schooling of their wards when it comes to paying out of pocket to buy books and uniforms and so students dropout gradually,’’ Oladimeji noted.

The NUT chairman said that there had been various interventions from the state in collaboration with partners to address the situation which had yielded positive results.

He identified one of such interventions as Better Education for Service Delivery (BESDA) which mopped up a significant number of out-of-school children.

“To the best of my knowledge, the number of out-of-school children has decreased but the present economic situation is worrisome and could add to the number of students who drop out of school,’’ Oladimeji said.

While speaking on the efforts of the state government, the Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Prof. Salihu Adelabu, said that the present administration would not relent to achieve further decline in the number of out-of-school children.

According to him, a majority of these children are on the streets hawking and engaging in vices in the society.

“We have continued to return out-of-school children back to school but we have some challenges, some indigenes reject formal education preferring that their wards engage in profitable business to meet their immediate needs.

“We realise that school-age children are migrating from the far north and other parts of the country to Ibadan here.

“In the course of profiling them, they could not be traced to a recognised parent or guardian. So, we are finding it difficult to take them back to school,’’ Adelabu said.

Concerned citizens, nonetheless, insist that stakeholders in education sector should begin to encourage pupils and students to stay in or return to school through practical interventions such feeding and other incentives to bring back children back to schools.

By Ibukun Emiola