Over 10m girls out of school in Nigeria – UNICEF

The United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF says over 10 million girl child which represents 60 per cent of the 18.5 million total number of school children in the country were out of school in Nigeria.

Chief of UNICEF field office in Kano, Rahama Farah, raised the alarm at a media dialogue on girls’ education under the girls’ education project, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, FCDO, and implemented by UNICEF.

Farah said majority of the out of school children were from northern Nigeria with hope on the horizon as the Gep 3 intervention was already yielding results as no fewer than 1.4million girls now had access to education in northern Nigeria.

He said the interventions are encouraging girls to attend school, but a lot still needs to be done to ensure that every girl in Nigeria is enrolled, attends school and completes her education.

On her part, education manager, UNICEF field office in Kano, Michael Banda, said the children were out of school as a result of early marriage and transition among others.