48% of out-of-school girls in Nigeria from North East, North West – UNICEF

More than 50 per cent of girls in Nigeria are not attending school at the basic education level, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.

Jutaro Sakamoto, education manager at UNICEF disclosed this in Abuja at the education conference organised by the French Institute in Nigeria.

He said 7.6 million girls were out of school in Nigeria – 3.9million at the primary and 3.7million at the junior secondary level.

Sakamoto also said 48 per cent of out-of-school girls were in the North West and North East, adding that gender parity in net attendance ratio was below 1.0 in 10 states, primarily in the North, but is decreasing in 15 states.

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According to him, 9 per cent of the poorest girls attend secondary school, compared to 81 per cent from the richest quintile.

While lamenting that Nigeria accounts for 15 per cent of out of school children globally, Sakamoto said, “If we can’t address the situation in Nigeria, we can’t solve the situation in the world.”

He said those who going to school were not being taught well as a result of lack of facilities, adding that UNICEF’s Education Opportunity for Out of School Children (OOSC) project had been able to make some impact.