A social perspective to addressing the current out-of-school Children problems in Nigeria
“A survey conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicates that the population of out of school children in Nigeria has risen from 10.5 million to 13.2 million, the highest in the world. Most of these children are in Nigeria’s northern states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, where Boko Haram insecurities have disrupted academic activities.”- Global Citizen
Tunde a young lad in Nigeria who was extremely passionate about Education came across this statistic again for the tenth time in a month. He has been volunteering for an organization in Abuja that was into sponsoring children to go back to school. They do this through community engagement to know the children who are out of school in communities in some of the northern states of Nigeria.
The experience with the NGO together with the increasing numbers of out-of-school children inspired him to start a movement. The movement was dedicated to sponsoring children to school for at least a year. To do this, he will pull funds from his network.
During the first year of the intervention, he got 10 sponsors to send 30 children back to school for 2 years. This development motivated him to want to do more. So, in the second year of the project, he got funds and support to send 100 children back to school for 3 years. This was a success he thought. This way, we will get more children out of the street to classes he thought. The project continued to grow, after 5 years of working on the project, he had sent 500 children back to school and the sponsorship support for each child was for 2–3 years.
Everything was going on well until one day. He was driving past one of the popular streets in one of the Northern states his movement serves, listening to his favorite music. As he was singing and enjoying the ride, he saw a familiar face. He decided to slow down to be sure he saw the face well. He looked through his rear mirror and confirmed it. That must be Aliyu he said out loud. Then he winds down and screamed at the top of his voice Aliyu! Aliyu!!
Aliyu looked to the side to see who called, then he moved slowly towards the car with his begging bowl. As soon as he saw the face of the person who called him, he shouted “Uncle Tunde”. Tunde was surprised to have seen Aliyu on the streets with a begging bowl.
“Aliyu, what are you doing here, I thought you were in School”, Tunde asked speaking in Hausa. Aliyu was one of the children his movement had supported 3 years back. He remembered him because of his incredibly unique look. Tunde met him when he was just 4 years old and was amazed by his looks. That was the first time he met with someone who had vitiligo. Because of him, Tunde went to study more about the skin condition.
Aliyu who is now 7 years old replied to him with a smile on his face “Uncle Tunde, thank you for supporting me to go back to school, I enjoyed it”. Tunde then asked, “So why are you on the streets, why are you not in school?” Aliyu replied saying “My mum cannot pay the school fees; my scholarship is over”
And this was the point of realization for Tunde. He thought to himself “Is this what I have been doing? I thought all the over 500 children our movement have supported will be out of the streets now”
You might be wondering what could he have done differently?
Well, this is my opinion-
1. To tackle the rising issue of children out of school in Nigeria, a sustainable plan needs to be developed. This means that organizations should think ahead of one-term or one-year school fees. Children stay in Primary school for 6 years, therefore if they are to be supported then it should cover the 6 years period. I know this doesn’t sound very easy to do, but it means that instead of focusing largely on helping 500 children with fees for 2 years in a space of 5 years without a sustainability plan, why not support 100 children with the fees for 6 years? And if you have the means to support the 500 children to stay in school throughout their primary level then please do.
2. Another perspective is to empower the parents so they can continue from where you stopped. So even if the child finishes the primary level, there is still the secondary level. Tunde’s organization might be focusing solely on Education, but he can partner with an organization working in the area of economic empowerment so that the parents of Aliyu can have access to training, support, and finance needed to start up and grow their own small scale business.
3. Remember that social development is not always about one perspective. We need to be able to create holistic solutions. Social development is not just about numbers reached, it is about the sustainable impact that creates the change that we want to see. So if you want to create projects think sustainable impact while also thinking number. So if Tunde has thought beyond the numbers to sustained impact the results would have been different.
4. Finally, If Tunde and his team had created a means to track the progress of their project, they would have found out this problem early enough. This means that monitoring and evaluating projects is a must especially when the direct project implementation phases are over. It is important to create a system that can keep one abreast of how the beneficiaries of certain projects are doing. It could be done quarterly or mid-year for maybe 2 years after the project has ended.
These are just a few of my thoughts, your opinions matter. Kindly drop your comments, let us think, learn, and grow together.
