The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) in Kano, Sadiq Wali has promised to solve the out-of-school children problem in the state by segmenting class hours and providing food for the children. This will help to accommodate more students. With over 900,00 out of school children in Kano state hawking,loitering the streets, market place, and other public locations in the state, most especially during school hours this is a real social problem to deal with.
Wali said this on Arise News while answering questions on how he intends to solve the problem of out of school children in the state.
“We intend to segment classes so that we have classes from 8am-12 noon taking different students, then classes from 1pm-5pm taking different students”
Edugist gathered that hawking, loitering the streets, lack of parental care are major contributing factors. UNESCO estimates there are about 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria. Borno state tops this list with 1.80 million children. Kano follows with 989,234 children. This is despite the free and compulsory education policy in the state. Speaking to the causes, Wali said most parents cannot afford the three square meal for their children leaving them at the mercy of begging and hawking daily. He emphasised that his government if elected will provide food for the children and also make incentives available to their parents.
“We intend to provide food for the students, at least one square meal and then we incentivise the parents because if we don’t do that a lot of them will prefer to send their children to the farm.
Meanwhile, data made available by the Kano State Ministry of Education shows there are 59,238 teachers to 4.7 million students in the state’s public schools. This translates to a 1:80 teacher/pupil ratio against the stipulated 1:40 teacher-pupil ratio by the National Policy on Education.
Ahead of the kano governorship election scheduled for March 18, 2023 Wali has promised to take the issue of education seriously in the state and decentralise whatever educational plan that is on ground in the state if elected.
