The House of Representatives has called on state governments to ensure improved security in schools to encourage school enrollment and check attacks from bandits.
The Chairman House Committee on Basic Education Professor Julius Ihonvbere made the appeal in Ado Ekiti when he led other members of the committee on a visit to Govenror Kayode Fayemi.
Professor Ihonvbere noted that nigeria have about 15 million out of school children due to Government’s inability to provide infrastructural facilities, security, and functional instructional materials in schools.
He stressed that the future of Nigeria can not be guaranteed and sustained without full attention to basic education..
Professor ihonvbere told the Governor that the committee identified the challenges of lack of personnel,inadequate infrastructure and safety of children in some schools it visited .
The house of representatives committee chairman urged nigerian Governors to take the campaign against out of school children with all seriousness to make education a right and not a privilege.
Professor ihonvbere expressed concern over the failure of govts to enrol girl child in functional schools which had further increase the total number of out of school children in nigeria.
He stressed that the situation was extremely bad in the northern parts of the country as some of the girls had resulted to almajiri there by exposed them to various crimes
The Lawmaker also spoke on the need for government to use the various intervention and special grants to basic education to provide infrastructural facilities and instructional materials in schools.
Responding, Governor kayode fayemi said there was an increament in school enrollment in the state due to the child right law banning underage trading during school hours.
Governor Fayemi urged the committee to prevail on universal basic education commission and federal ministry of education to pay more attention to monitoring of schools and evaluation of projects to enhance academic standard.
