A former governorship aspirant in Kwara State, Sunday Adebayo Babalola, has praised President Bola Tinubu for his commitment to addressing the issue of out-of-school children in Nigeria, as reported by This Day.

President Tinubu made this promise during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palais des Élysées, according to a statement by the presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga.

The issue of out-of-school children is a pressing concern in Nigeria, with a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in September stating that there are 20 million out-of-school children in the country.

President Tinubu's promise to address this issue has been welcomed by Sunday Babalola, who has commended the President for his commitment to improving education in Nigeria.

Babalola in his goodwill message when he received an award as The Outstanding Philanthropist 2024 by The Progressive Magazine in Abuja, which was made available to journalists on Friday said all tiers of government, corporate organization, donor agencies and other philanthropists should be committed to reducing the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria.

He noted that the menace posed security and developmental challenges.

Other award winners included: Dr. Fatima Zanna Gana; Queen Halima Adenike Tejuosho; Hajiya Ummusalma Isiaka Rabiu; and Dr. Bello Buhari Ibrahim. The event also featured presentation of prices to the winners of Seyi Tinubu National Essay competition. Successful pupils and students who participated during the October 2024 essay competition received awards. N500,000 prize was announced for the winner: Miss Maryam Bashir of University of Abuja; N300,000 for first runner-up, Miss Happiness David from Akwa Ibom and N200,000 for the second runner-up, Mr. Segun Adeleye from Lagos.

Babalola said: “The 20 million estimate for the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is an unsavoury development . It becomes more heartbreaking when considering that the out-of-school children in Nigeria, about 10.5 million of them aged 5-14 years are not in school as recorded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2020. This presents a breeding ground for more insecurity in the country.

“It is debilitating that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, making up one in five of the world’s out-of-school children and that the situation is particularly challenging in the north of the country, where the net attendance rate is only 53 percent.

“There must be concerted and collaborative efforts to address this ugly development as education is the bedrock of societal development and no country can develop without functional, efficient, quality and accessible education.

“I call on the three tiers of government as well as corporate organsiations, donor agencies and philanthropists to be more committed to educational advancement in Nigeria. We should address poor remuneration of educational staff and personnel as well as insufficient instructional and learning materials in the schools/institutions. Some pupils and students still study under dilapidated environments, even under shades. Such must not be allowed to continue to exist in this nation.

“May I call on the federal government, the National Assembly, the 36 states in the country, the federal capital territory and the 774 local governments in the country to provide more budgetary allocations to the education sector.

“I particularly call on the National Assembly to ensure that sufficient budgetary allocation is accorded to the education sector in the N47.9 trillion budget of the federal government for 2025.”

Editor-In-Chief, The Progressive Magazine, Idris Jibril, called for reawakening of reading culture among Nigerian youths.

He said that no society ever progresses by dancing to development.

He stated that reading is essential for societal development.

Idris said: “If we look clearly at our demography in Nigeria, our median age is roughly 17. We are a young population. Most of these young populations are GenZ. They do not read papers. They read from their phones. How do we bring these people on board to read? That is what started the online platform where we dish out news that will be appealing to this particular generation.

“Today we have a whole lot of generations that need to have something to read and something to hold on to. This is where the Progressives Media come in to cover that need. As we have existed for over a year, we wanted to do better and also impact society. We decided to come up with an initiative that generally in Nigeria, what you call appreciation is the entertainment or creative industry, people prefer to read than to read, People prefer to go any programme that will have music and dance than any intellectual programme. No society ever progresses by dancing to society or dancing to development, we need to read and study to develop.”