By Dr. Sulleiman Adediran, FNIM, FNAE
Introduction
The out-of-school children (OOSC) crises pose serious challenges to Nigeria socio-economic development, its future well-being, and potentials. With close to 20 million of its children out of school[1], the highest number globally, the urgency to address these challenges cannot be over-emphasized. These challenges are exacerbated by various factors including poverty, cultural beliefs, inadequate infrastructure, and insecurity. Community engagement is an important strategy to tackle and address these challenges. By involving local communities, we can develop solutions that are context-specific, including increasing awareness on the inherent dangers on not attending to OOSC issue, building trust, and leveraging resources to get children back to school.
Issues surrounding the Out-of-School Children (OOSC) Crises
Factors contributing to these crises include poverty, inadequate school infrastructure, and educational resources affecting both school-aged boys and girls throughout the country. In the northern part of the country, child labour, parents’ attitudes to sticking to outdated cultural norms, never-ending communal conflicts resulting in human displacement, insecurity occasioned by insurgency and banditry are responsible for the OOSC syndrome with majority of the victims being children many of whom are girls. In the southern part of the country, particularly, the south-east, economic issues appear to be the issues driving children, mainly, boys out of school, whiles in the south-western states where enrollment rates are high, retaining children to complete school still need to be improved[2]. Understanding these multifaceted issues is crucial for developing effective strategies to bring children back to school.
Community Engagement: A Key Strategy
Community engagement entails actively involving local populations in decision-making processes and implementation strategies that affect their lives. This approach recognizes the unique insights and capacities of communities to confront and address the challenges affecting them. In the context of education, community engagement can:
- Foster Participatory Decision-Making: Involving community members, such as parents, teachers, local leaders, and youth, in planning, policymaking[1] and other decision-making processes that ensures that educational initiatives are relevant and culturally sensitive. This participatory approach fosters a sense of ownership and accountability, making communities more likely to support and sustain educational programmes.
- Build Local Capacity: By empowering communities through building their capacities and allocating resources enables them to support educational initiatives effectively. This could include training teachers, providing instructional materials, and developing School-Based Management Committees (SBMCs) to monitor school performance and advocate for resources and improvement in the overall education delivery system.
[1] UNICEF (2022) Education opportunities for Out-of-School Children (OOSC) https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/media/7746/file/UNICEF%20Nigeria%20Cheat%20Sheet:%20Out-of-school%20Children.pdf
[2] UNICEF (2024) UNICEF raises alarm over increasing rate of out-of-school children in Ekiti, Oyo, others. A 2-day regional stakeholders meeting on out-of-school child retention, transition, and completion models held in Ibadan.https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/08/unicef-raises-alarm-over-increasing-rate-of-out-of-school-children-in-ekiti-oyo-others/
[3] Adediran, Sulleiman (2016) Empowering Communities Through Participatory Policy Development Process: An Example Using The Participatory Modified Bottom-Up (PMB) Model. Nigerian Journal of Community Learning & Development: Volume 1 Number 2, December (2016) p 8-24
- Promote Cultural Sensitivity and Inclusivity: Where cultural resistance to formal education exists, by engaging communities in decision-making process, local cultural values and practices can be incorporated into educational contents. This will make schooling more appealing and relevant, and enterprising.
- Leverage Local Resources: Local communities are known to be able to mobilize local resources, such as hiring part-time teachers and building additional classroom spaces, to supplement government efforts. These promote school governance system, community ownership of the schools and foster sustainability of the educational delivery system.
Strategies for Effective Community Engagement
Some of the specific strategies that could be adopted include:
- Stakeholder identification and Collaboration: Identifying and collaborating with key stakeholders, including traditional leaders, religious groups, opinion leaders, SBMCs, faith-based organisations (FBOs), civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and government agencies. They can ensure coordinated and comprehensive approaches to tackling educational barriers.
- Capacity Building Programmes: Training programmes aimed at enhancing the skills of community members, SBMCs, particularly in education management and advocacy. These strategies can strengthen communities’ efforts to improve school attendance, bringing back OOSC to schools as well as improving quality of education outcomes.
- Community-SBMC-Led Monitoring: Establishing community-based monitoring systems to track school attendance, performance, and dropout rates. These can provide valuable data to inform policy and programme adjustments in relationship to reduction in number of OOSC, and adjusting strategies to fit the desired purposes.
- Incentive Schemes: Introducing incentive schemes, such as scholarships, school feeding programmes, and conditional cash transfers, can encourage families to prioritize education over other economic activities. These can reduce the scourge and bring OOSC back to schools.
- Awareness Campaigns: Conducting awareness campaigns that highlight the benefits of education and/or challenge harmful cultural practices can shift community perceptions, increase support for schooling while reducing the OOSC syndrome.
Challenges and Approach for Consideration
Community engagement faces challenges such as resistance to change, limited resources, and varying levels of community readiness. It is essential to approach engagement with cultural/religious sensitivities, patience, and a commitment to building trust and mutual respect.
Concluding Remarks
Community engagement is a vital strategy in addressing the out-of-school crisis in Nigeria. By leveraging the strengths and insights of local communities, it is possible to develop sustainable and context-specific solutions that improve educational access and quality. By empowering local communities to take ownership of education initiatives, we can increase awareness, improve enrollment, minimize dropouts, and support children complete their education. Ultimately, we must aim to provide sustainable solutions which bring the OOSC syndrome to the barest minimum.
