By House Of Reps Set To Hold Special Session To Address Out Of School Children In Nigeria
Nigeria’s Speaker, Rt Hon Femi Gbajabiamila will on Thursday lead a special session focusing on actionable solutions to achieve a measurable reduction in rate of out of school children in the country.
The Speaker disclosed that the session was necessary as the situation of children currently out of school is a ticking time bomb and noted that he intends to do something within the shortest possible time.
He said, “It is important to state that education is not a privilege but a right. If we can agree that education is a fundamental human right even if we have to codify that or amend the Constitution that it is fundamental and essential human right, then it becomes an obligation for us to fund it.”
BlackBox Nigeria gathered that the Special Session will serve a number of purposes amongst which is to get the attention of the Executive, Legislative, Media and the general public on the need to take urgent and decisive action to address the challenge of Nigeria’s out of School Children.
It was gathered that the special session will also involve the lawmakers hearing from a wide range of stakeholders who have previously intervened in the scourge and give possible feedback on reasons why prior efforts didn’t work as expected.
Speaking about the special session, Senator Rochas Okorochas revealed that it was long overdue to start with as it seems the nation is sitting “on a keg of gunpowder” as he added that the rate at which the out of school children is growing in Nigeria calls for concern.
“This is long overdue. We are sitting in a keg of gunpowder with the growing number of out of school children in Nigeria. There would be no future for the educated if we don’t address the issues of illiteracy in our country,” the former Governor of Imo State said.
The special session, which has been scheduled to be live-streamed on the official Facebook page of House of Representatives will provide an avenue to consider all alternative opinions on the best approaches to reducing the number of not enrolled in school around the country.
