In recent times, the challenge of children dropping out of school has continued to generate serious concern as it increases the number of out-of-school children in the country.
Reports have indicated that students drop out of school due to poverty, cultural differences, early marriage and insecurity.
Recently, the World Bank deputy country director, Taimur Samad, disclosed that more than two-thirds of girls in Nigeria drop out before making it to junior secondary school.
Samad, who represented the country director, Ndiame Diop, at the national conference on girls’ education and empowerment that was held in Abuja, said 35 per cent are married off by the age of 15, and 45 per cent give birth before the age of 18.
While noting challenges faced by girl-child education to include high dropout rate, early marriage and teenage pregnancies, he said the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) programme is ambitious and aims to reach over 25 million children, of which 15 million are students, 9 million approximately, are adolescent girls across 18 states.
Meanwhile, an official report by the World Bank seen by Daily Trust showed that of the over 11 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, 50 per cent have never attended school, 25 per cent have dropped out, and 25 per cent attend Islamic schools.
Also, the document showed that dropping out of school is prevalent for all ages, but starts to increase gradually for 12-year-olds and older.
However, data also shows that there are more male dropouts than females at the senior secondary school level nationwide.
Data analysis of drop-out of school students
There is always the projection that there are more girls that drop out of school than boys, but data shows that more boys drop out of school at the senior secondary school stage across that country.
The current report on Senior Secondary Schools in Nigeria shows that the number of students who started SS1 dropped as they progressed to SS2 and SS3.
