Dropouts constitute more danger than out-of-school children in North – Dr Adam

Associate Professor Idris Adams is the Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education in Yobe State. In this interview, he speaks on the challenges of education in Nigeria, especially the out-of-school children issue in the state.

The out-of-school children issue is a challenge in Nigeria, especially in the North. How are you addressing that in Yobe?

The issue of out-of-school children and school dropouts is one of the problems we have; not just in Yobe State, but in Nigeria as a whole. One of the key things that we have taken to address the situation is the mandate given to the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children’s Education.

Most of the out-of-school children are within the school limit age but are not properly registered in school. For those that are in school and dropouts, Yobe is trying to inject them into a kind of skills acquisition programme so that they can be of benefit to themselves and society.

Do you have a special budget to address the issue of out-of-school children in the state?

• Malaria: Implement preventive measures beyond nets, experts urge govt
• Shippers’ council urges exporters to flood African markets with agricultural products

I know that most of the states do not have that. I think what they normally do is that the budget is included in the budget of the ministry. They don’t have a specific heading for it, but it has a place. But what is important is that the budget handling this needs to be increased because we have a greater number of out-of-school children. But most of the states are battling between reviving the dilapidated structures and addressing those that are out of school; that is why in most of the cases development partners are invited to come and contribute their quota.

But specifically, a budget under the name of out-of-school children, I don’t think we have that.

What do you see as the problem with students who do not transit to higher classes or to tertiary institutions?

These loss-in-transition students are probably students who are able to finish their primary school and cannot proceed to secondary school, and some of them will finish secondary school but will not be able to proceed to tertiary institution.

This category of people are constituting a greater danger than the out-of-school children, because these are the guys who are now influencing social media because they can read and write. And because of them not being able to join tertiary institutions, they have free time to write all sorts of nonsense which can instigate people to go and do whatever is against the law.

One of the major steps we have taken in Yobe is that we have given the principals of secondary schools the mandate to take the record of all their graduating students. We have asked them to form something like WhatsApp groups so that they can be following their discussions. By knowing how many of them have transitioned to tertiary institutions. If a high number of them transit to higher institutions, it is a great achievement, but if it is the contrary, this will give the state government a chance to formulate a policy that may subsidise tertiary education and be offered to those ones.

We have realised that most of them are willing to go to tertiary institutions but they cannot afford it. People are battling to at least feed and you’re asking them to send their children to higher institutions. However, this will give us an idea on how to formulate a policy to address the situation.

You said Yobe provides free education but that some people refuse to send their children to school. What do you think is responsible?

Education from basic to secondary school is free in Yobe, and when the students register for WAEC and NECO, the state government pays the full registration. Parents do not contribute a kobo.

However, we have realised that there’s a gap in advocacy and enlightenment. The parents need to be aware of the importance of education. Most of the problems we are facing are from the rural areas where parents prefer to send their children to the farm rather than to school. They want immediate benefits. Education is a long process.

With this, we have established a centre that will be responsible for the enlightenment, particularly in the rural areas. The centre has been given all the necessary support to go around the villages to collaborate with the traditional rulers and district heads. Because we realised that if the district heads are involved, they can at least force parents to take their children to school. If they are not involved, it will be very difficult for us to go down to the rural areas to tell people what to do because they listen to their heads more than the government itself.

Findings have shown that the almajiri schools which were built by former President Goodluck Jonathan and handed over to state governments are mostly in bad shape and most of the children have returned to the streets. What is the situation in Yobe?

Actually, all the almajiri model schools in Yobe are functioning, but what needs to be noted is the high number of almajiri, and one or two schools cannot handle them. What is important is, as I said, advocacy. These parents that are not sending their children to almajiri school need to know: number one, their responsibility from the religious perspective, they don’t have the basis to do that. From the economic perspective, they don’t have the basis to do that. What is important now is to convince the parents to stop that habit.

Let me give you an example. There were three children we found on the street. “Where is your father?” They said they were from that town and that they had two rooms in their house. One room was occupied by their mother and the other one was occupied by them. The one they were occupying, their father sent them out and married another woman. So, imagine, now the case is that, how would you convince this man that is producing these children and sending them to the street? His mind needs to be controlled and educated. Otherwise, if you are taking these, more are coming.

So, that is why we say advocacy is very important, and in Yobe, we are now formulating a new policy that if you want to send your child to almajiri school, there is no problem, but let him study in your own home town. They can go to almajiri school and after the school they can go back to their houses. So, they will not be roaming the streets and begging.

But one of the major problems is that if you have control over the population of your state, you don’t have control over the people coming from other states. Now, if you look at that, the majority of almajiri are not from Yobe, so this is something that needs to be addressed, and I am happy that we are now having a commission that is responsible to handle that.

Nigeria has over 200,000 shortage of teachers and currently we have teachers who have caught the “japa” syndrome. What number do you think your state needs to bridge the gap?

It will be very difficult for me to estimate, but at least we are looking at about 3,000 to 4,000 more teachers. Early this year, Gov Mai Mala Buni gave the approval for the employment of 2,900 teachers. But we still need about 3,000 teachers. But producing a teacher is not a day’s job, and even when people apply, you have to screen them and interview them to make sure that you select the right people for the job.

So, we are in this process and very soon we are going to call for interviews, and this interview is not going to be limited to the indigenous people; as long as you believe you are qualified, you can come. We interview you, we screen you and if we find you worthy to teach, we offer you a job which could be permanent and pensionable or on contract.

Is there something special that you people are doing on education that you want us to know?

Yes! We are doing three things: number one is that we have the Yobe State Education Policy.

We have diagnosed all the areas where we are having problems and this policy is going to address most education problems in the state. Number two, we are also formulating the policy of teacher professional development, because as I said earlier, you can find a teacher who is not qualified but you can train him to be qualified. Others are not even qualified and not trainable. This category of teachers, we cannot expel them or send them out of their jobs. What we are going to do is to take them where they can be of benefit to a particular ministry and in their place we are going to bring people who are going to work for us.

And then we are institutionalising what we call the annual status quo report. This report will be presented to the governor annually. It will explain all the problems of education in Yobe, highlighting achievements and identifying key challenges. This will give us an idea on how to plan before we move to the next year addressing the problem we had experienced the previous year.