Out of School Children

About 18.5 million children, the majority of whom are girls, do not have access to education in Nigeria, a figure up sharply compared with 2021, the U.N children’s fund says. Last year, UNICEF estimated that 10.5 million children were out of school in Africa’s most populous country. “Currently in Nigeria, there are 18.5 million out-of-school children, 60% of whom are girls,” Rahama Farah, the head of the UNICEF office in Kano, told reporters Wednesday, May 12th 2022. Children who have lost their parents are of neglect and the attendant consequences is vulnerability. Some of them become tools in the hands of insensitive individuals in our society. A great number of them have been force into child labour and consequently gone out of school. Young girls have been recruited for prostitution and other illicit businesses. Some have become cultists and criminals because they felt that the society has neglected them. Monye Ehiwuogwu Lucky Foundation has a scholarship programme that attends to the school needs of these vulnerable children. We pay school fees, buy books, uniforms and other associated materials that will help sustain them in school. We pay Junior and Senior Secondary Examination Fees. We have started our school feeding programme to carter for the food needs of these children. No reasonable learning can be achieved with an empty stomach.