25.3 million Nigerians are out of school – Education minister

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25.3 million Nigerians are out of school – Education minister

Millions of Nigerian children and youths are out of school as the education sector battles challenges including poor funding, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has said.

“About 25.3 million students at all levels of education are out- of- school in the country,” Adamu told journalists after the presentation of a draft roadmap for the education sector – ‘Education for change: A ministerial strategic plan 2016-2019’ – to stakeholders in Abuja on Monday.

Apart from the funding challenges, the Minister listed other challenges of the education sector to include out-of-school children, cultism, exam malpractice and indiscipline.

Adamu, who expressed the hope that the strategic plan would help address the problems in the education sector, said that only qualified and duly registered teachers would be allowed to teach in the country to ensure professionalism.

He said the teaching profession had declined and there was need to ensure professionalism to improve the quality of education.

“Teacher education itself is dying simply because non-professionals have now become teachers. Therefore, the professionalisation and registration of teachers will help make sure that the profession is reorganised with quacks kicked out,” he said.

“So nobody should be employed as a teacher if he or she does not have a teaching qualification; there is no magic if you are not qualified as a teacher: you cannot teach.”

According to Adamu, the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria is in the forefront of ensuring that only qualified and registered teachers would be allowed to teach in Nigeria.