Mohammed Sani Idris, Executive Secretary, National Commission of Almajiri and Out of School Children, has said that there are 251 million out-of-school children globally and Nigeria is leading with over thirteen million children as the second highest in the World.
According to the Executive Secretary, Pakistan is leading in the index of out-of-school children and called for a swift action to stem the disturbing trend.
Idris made this known at the inaugural regional conference on population dynamics, security, climate change, out of school children/Almajiri and vulnerable children in Nigeria, organised by the National Population Commission and hosted by the Nasarawa State Government, in Lafia.
Read also: 251 million children globally are out of school- UNESCO report
He said, already a policy framework had been developed to groom Almajiri children in the memorisation of the Qur’an to linguistically understand the right contexts in order not to be misled.
“Out of this number, 163m are from Africa. And in Africa, Nigeria is having the largest number. Nigeria is ranked second globally after Pakistan with 18.3m out of school children.
“For the almajiri, even though the data before us is not cogent and verifiable but it is suggesting that we have over 30 million almajiri that are today roaming the streets of this country,” he said.
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