The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is currently supporting the entrepreneurship development of 306, 000 children in six pilot local government areas of Kano state.
The Chief of Kano field office UNICEF, Maulid Warfa, who disclosed this in Kano, during the 30th anniversary of the conversation on the rights of the child, also revealed that organization in partnership with the state government had facilitated the enrollment of more than 81, 000 girls in schools across the state.
Warfa who expressed dismay at the rate of out-of-school children in the country, said UNICEF’s intervention was aimed at encouraging school enrollment in Kano where according to him over 1.4 million children were out of school.
“Today I am very disappointed and also very happy, In 2019, in Nigeria there are over 10.5 million children out of school; and in a state like Kano, we have 1.49 million children out of school. It is with this background that the current governor of Kano is rallying behind his launching of free primary and secondary education,that we would like to sort of continue the momentum and make sure children are enrolled to schools and those that are in schools have access to quality education.
“So as of today with the effort of the programmes that UNICEF is supporting within 6 LGAs that are our focused LGAs, 306, 000 children are benefiting from support by UNICEF and the development partners, we also launched and started enrolling 81, 000 girls as part of the new initiative to ensure more children are enrolled in school.”
The UNICEF chief averred that too many Nigerian children and young people were being left behind, especially when it comes to education, adding that the country has the highest number of out of school children.
He explained that Friday’s conversation, tagged ‘Naija Youth Talk’, with the theme ‘The Nigeria We Want, Voices from Kano’, would allow young people in the state to create the Nigeria of their choice as well as build momentum and support for further action.
In his keynote address, Dr Mansur Muhammad-Tukur , Executive Director, Development Professionals Network International (DevProNet), called on all and sundry in the state to key into the struggle to combat the menace of out-of-school children saying it is a collective responsibility.
“Kano State has the highest number of street beggars or ‘Almajiris’, scavengers and hawkers, especially the girl-child in the world and this is worrisome,” Muhammad-Tukur said.
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