Nigeria Accounts for the Highest Number of Out-of-School Children; The Education Crisis – Infrastructure

(Photo: Girls sit in a dilapidated classroom in Maiduguri, Nigeria, 2012. Credit: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)

Nigeria’s government recently acknowledged for the first time that the country has the highest number of children out of school in the world. It says there are 10.5 million children not being educated. Education officials have blamed cultural factors, nomadic communities and the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency; but critics point to a lack of funding.

Across the country schools are overcrowded, dilapidated and ill-equipped, while in rural areas access to education is limited. The country’s education ministry says it is committed to providing an ”inclusive and functional education system”. BBC Hausa’s Mohammed Kabir Mohammed in Abuja shares his experiences.

“In rural Nigerian communities, if you have to take your children to school, the children have to trek long distances and some of these schools are not well equipped, one teacher is asked to take care of two classes; the Students are camped into a small space to learn”.