Poverty, Dilapidated School Structures Worsen Out-of-School Children Enrollment in Some Communities of Bauchi State

By Bashir Hassan Abubakar

As the call for massive enrollment of out of school children takes centre stage in Bauchi State, some parents have associated low enrolment of school children to what they described as unfriendly environment for learning and the poverty level of the parents.

This came to light on Monday 24th July, 2023 when a select group of journalists interfaced with some parents and community leaders in Gumchiguni and Masori villages of Alkaleri LGA of Bauchi while on an on-the-spot assessment on low enrolment of children into schools.

Sharing his views on the enrollment challenge, Community leader of Gumchiguni, Mallam Ali Sarkin Shanu said that there is no conducive atmosphere of learning in the community.

The community leader said that during rainy season, children in the community don’t go to school because of leaking classrooms.

Sarkin Shanu also lamented the dilapidated structure of the school in the community along side other challenges that borders around lack of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities, tables/chairs, learning aids and manpower.

“With the absence of some of these basic facilities that becomes worse during rainy season, both parents and pupils finds it convenient to send their children or wards to the farm to assist household heads”, said the community leader.

He then called on the Bauchi State Government, other influential members of the LGA and implementing partners to come to the aid of the community by making the school environment user friendly and conducive for learning.

A resident of the Gumchigun and mother of six children, Aisha Mohammed said that poverty is by far the major factor that is militating against enrollment of children into school.

She said that when parents cannot afford to feed their children properly due to the poverty level and the high cost of living, how can they contain with the demands of schools in purchasing school requirements like uniforms, books and other demands.She said that there are lot of competing needs in the family like feeding, healthcare and others and that most of the household heads do not have a steady source of livelihood.

Aisha then suggested that Government should make education affordable through providing some of the basic necessities like uniforms, books, teaching aids and friendly environment for learning.

Sharing her opinion with the Journalists, Lami Ibrahim, another resident in the community, said that sending children to school has become a heaculian task because of poverty in most of the households.

She said due to the poverty level and high cost of living, some parents are forced to send their children to hawk in the street in order to provide for the family.

Lami then advised Government and other stakeholders to devise a way of empowering parents through cash transfers.

While disclosing Government efforts in the enrollment campaign, Koriji Buba Umar- Director of School services SUBEB, Bauchi state, said that despite all the challenges enumerated by members of the community, assessment carried out in the communities visited revealed that there was improvement in the enrollment of children in schools in the community.

He further that the number of out of school children in the state in general have dropped drastically because there were a lot of intervention by the state government and other partners in the education sector.

Recall that in the Bauchi State Annual Schools Census data of 2023, the state has 1,269,228 enrollment of primary school children, over 5,000 enrollment of students into junior secondary schools.

Also, in Alkaleri local government area, there is 67,081 enrollment of pupils and students into primary and secondary schools.

Our correspondent reports that the field assessment visit was facilitated by UNICEF Bauchi Field Office in an effort to create an interface with journalists and out of school children, parents, community leaders and other key State actors in education sector of Bauchi State.