Out-of-school children hit 20m as poverty, insecurity worsen
*Sad, brutish lives of 20 million out-of-school children *‘Kids into alcohol, hard drugs, smoking’ *Situation escalating in South-South states *Govts pass buck, highlight measures to tackle menace *Most street children in Rivers, Cross River from the North IN spite of the efforts by governments, many more Nigerian children are dropping out of school. Although the Federal Ministry of Education is picking holes in the 2021 figures of an analytical statistics organisation, SBMorgan Intelligence, that put the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria at 12.3 million, the latest data of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, says the current number is 20 million. UNESCO, which says a new and improved methodology was used to arrive at the latest figures, said there are “244 million children and youth between the ages of 6 and 18 worldwide (who) are still out of school”, with India, Nigeria and Pakistan having the highest figures of out-of-...