Sopuruchi Onwuka

With approximately four million teenagers dropping out of school in 2023, Nigeria pumps out the sixth largest number of primary school dropouts in West Africa; and the low literacy level holds potential to complicate the country’s abysmal poverty level.

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According to information contained in the 2023 Factsheet available at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), significant 27 percent or 3.9 million children of secondary school age of 14 to 16 years dropped out of primary education despite the government’s universal basic education programme which guarantees the right of children to fundamental education.

The number of school dropouts, The Oracle Today reports, accounts for significant 27 percent of the 14.6 million children of school age in the country; earning Nigeria an embarrassing sixth position in the chart of countries with highest proportion of out-of-primary school children in West Africa.

This leaves out 2 million males, a 27% of 7.5 teen males who did not complete their primary education and 1.9 million females, also 27% of 7.1 teen females who did not complete primary education. As a result, only 5.5 million male and 5.1 million female children completed their primary school education as scheduled in 2023.

The school dropout figure also mirrors the total rate of out of primary school children which stands at 26 percent. The one percent differential represents the school age children who never enrolled in the first instance.

According to the report, some two million teenage boys and 1.9 million teenage girls who dropped out of primary education grappled with several factors including poverty, bias against formal education, non-affordability of education, crisis, and family preference.

These factors, according to the World Bank, also hinder the enrollment of children into primary education in the first place.

The Nigerian figure sharply contrasts with the performance of its poorer West African neighbours like Benin, Togo Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana where teenage primary education have been driven up to near 100 percent.

According to figures from both the World Bank and UNICEF, dropout rate in Togo in the year under review is just one percent, Five percent in Benin Republic and six percent in Cote D’Ivoire.

Troubled Sahel countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso post the highest rates of 44 percent, 40 percent and 32 percent respectively.

High rate of out-of-school children, economic analysts say, come with other socio-economic vices like slowed economic growth, poverty, gender disparity, and high rate of crime. And UNICEF warns that out-of-school children are vulnerable to forced child marriage, child labour, and recruitment into armed groups.

Apart from denying children their right to education, dropping out of school also denies them right to safety, health, and good life.

On the other hand, effective primary education can build a solid foundation for reducing extreme poverty and promoting social changes’

The report holds that addressing out-of-school children would also solve other problems that relate to incomplete education.