3m Children Denied Access To Education In North East – NGO

The Chief Executive Officer of Save The Children, Norway, an International non-governmental organization, Mrs. Tove Wang has revealed that over 3 million children in the North Eastern states of Adamawa, Maiduguri and Yobe are currently denied access to education, adding that Nigeria is faced with an emergency rooted in opposition to western education.

his is even as she noted that 80 percent of displaced children in the region living in host communities have little or no access to education, saying that Nigeria need $1bn to resolve humanitarian crisis as highlighted in the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Nigeria.

Wang who stated this in Abuja yesterday while briefing newsmen on Humanitarian Crisis in North East stressed that the forthcoming humanitarian conference on the crisis in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region billed to take place in Oslo, Norway on February 23rd and 24th 2017 would focus on three key issues in Nigeria such as food security and nutrition; protection and access to education.

According to her, “The donor conference will bring together civil society organizations, the United Nations, donors and affected countries’ governments with the aim of drawing attention to the crisis and increasing financial support.

She said that before the insurgency started in 2009 73 percent of children aged between 5-16 never attended school in Borno state adding that literacy rate were as low as 28 percent across the North eastern states compared to 52 percent for the entire Nigeria.

Wang further disclosed that about 450,000 children would suffer acute malnutrition in North East while 300,000 of such children would come from Borno state stressing that United Nations crisis response plan is targeted about 7million people.

“We are teaching numeracy, literacy and life skills as part of our Early Childhood Care and Development program for younger children in five locations across both camps and host communities, though we plan to enroll 1000 children between 3 to 5 years old but almost 2000 have come.”

She noted that federal government and international community must ensure that children’s future are not ruined even as she expressed optimism that the Minister of Education would have the political will to send children back to school.

Also speaking, the Country Director of Save the Children, Mr. Ben Foot said his organization has a global agreement with UNICEF to coach the sector group educationally, noting that federal government led the process of developing the 2017 humanitarian response plan.

Source: Leadership