The Kaduna State Government has disclosed that 91,024 pupils were returned to school through the strategies in 2022.

Permanent Secretary in the state Ministry of Education, Dr. Halliru Soba, said 62,372 pupils were also newly enrolled due to the School-Based Management Committee activities on the back to school campaign.

Addressing the media on Tuesday in Kaduna, Soba noted that from July till date, no fewer than 7,168, community volunteers on the enrolment campaign had been sensitised.

He said that the ministry would continue engaging the Education Marshalls and had also identified voluntary education marshalls, currently being scrutinised to achieve the objective.

“If we are able to get children back to school, then we will achieve the human capital development index, which without enrolment and retention, will not be achieved.

“We are also piloting teaching at the right level programme in Ikara LGA and hope to scale it up to all the LGAs to improve learning outcome and reduce learning poverty rate,” Soba said.

The ministry also sought media partnership and contributions towards reducing what it called ‘learning poverty’.

Learning poverty involves two dimensions affecting those who were out of school and those in the school but could not read and write.

Soba sought the partnership at a meeting with media personnel on Tuesday.

Addressing the media personnel, Soba said the partnership had become imperative as parts of efforts geared towards reducing the number of out-of-school children.

He said in 2022, the back to school campaign would continue to use 177 mother associations as a measure, different from the previous strategies, by expanding the scope to reach more organisations on the campaign.

He restated the Kaduna Government’s commitment to providing conducive learning atmosphere for teachers and students

He also re-emphasised the ongoing school feeding programme and stipends to be given to parents to ensure retention of their children in schools.

The Perm Secretary explained that learning poverty had two dimensions affecting those who were out of school and those in the school but could not read and write.

“When you have a child that cannot read or do simple addition or basic subtraction, he has learning poverty,” he said.

Soba said that the critical role the media would play, especially on enrolling children back to school, was massive sensitisation.

He also said that the media was expected to relentlessly disseminate information on the importance of educated population to national building and security.

He noted that the meeting with the media was to strengthen existing relationship with the ministry, towards facilitating robust campaign on ‘back to school’ programme.

He stressed that no matter loud the programme to enroll and get back children to school was, without effective media coverage, the successes would be limited.

The permanent secretary further disclosed that government was trying to solve the problem of learning poverty as the issue was a bit high in the state.

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He noted that the essence of re-embarking on the back to school campaign was to maximise leveraging on the Kaduna State free and compulsory basic education to enable children to key into it for their benefit and the society.

“The back to school campaign was earlier conducted by door to door campaign and community dialogue with youth, traditional and religious leaders, among other strategies.

Also, Mrs. Ruth Leo, UNICEF Desk Officer at the Ministry, said the efforts to continue the campaign to get children to school was prompted by a survey they carried out and discovered that the country had high number of out-of-school children.

She noted that UNICEF was all about women and children, which brought the idea to collaborate with state governments in taking back children to school.

Leo stressed the disadvantages of not allowing children go to school, noting that the world was dynamic and therefore education was needed to fit into the society.

The Star