No fewer than 90,000 out of school children are resident in Anambra State, the Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, Dr. Ben Nwosu, has said.
He declared this yesterday in Awka at a project close-out and unveiling of the Data Management System by Evidence and Collaboration for Inclusive Development (ECID), in partnership with Christian Aid.
In a research tagged: ‘Access improvement to Basic Service Delivery Through Voice For the Most Marginalised Groups in Anambra and Kaduna states’, Nwosu described the statistics as worrisome.
Nwosu said: “It’s quite worrying because based on official statistics, Anambra is one of the educationally advantaged states. It’s more worrying when you go into the field and see the wide gap existing between the rural and urban locations.
“Maybe what exists in more developed parts of the state swallows those of the rural areas where you see dilapidated infrastructure with pupils running around due to absence of teachers.”
He urged the state to copy Kaduna’s model of school census of finding out existing infrastructure, manpower and general data in the education sector, which informed their subsequent interventions, planning and budgeting.
