The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has faulted the process involved in the implementation of the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) projects across the 17 focal states.
Adamu, represented by the Minister of State, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, spoke in Abuja on Thursday at the BESDA Technical Meeting between the ministry and the 17 focal states.
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He, therefore, suggested the use of National Identity Number (NIN) for enrolment of new pupils/students on the scheme.
He also queried the projected 13 million figure adopted by the World Bank as a basis for launching the program across the country.
He said the projected 13 million out- of-school figure presented in 2017 was not sufficient enough to determine the actual numbers of enrolment from across the states.
“When I came into office in 2019, I said this programme sounds like an official wayo business, they said what do I mean,I said my first degree is law, the 2nd and 3rd is law.
“So I asked them; you have a cast number, somebody said Nigeria has 13million out-of-School children and that was done in 2013.
“And that world Bank said they had projected the population of Nigeria to be X,Y,Z and that at the time they made the projection, they had counted the number of schools in Nigeria.
“ And the numbers of children that are there and they had done the mathematics and minus it from the number in school from the one they expected that they would have born and they said the minus is the result, he said.
He further said he asked World Bank how many were expected to die and was not told none.
The ministry’s BESDA Coordinator, Amina Haruna, said:
“The BESDA programme is a $611m World Bank grant that aims to enroll OSC into the classroom, improve literacy and strengthen accountability for results in basic education.
“The benefitting states are Adamawa, Bauchi,Borno, Ebonyi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, kano ,katsina, kebbi, Niger, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto,Taraba,Yobe and zamfara State. (NAN)
