Katsina State Gov Seeks Review of UNICEF’s 537,000 Out-of-School Children 2024 Data

In a recent interview on Arise TV following the Northwest Governors Forum, Katsina State Governor Dikko Umar Radda expressed skepticism regarding the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) data which claims that 537,000 children in his state are out of school. The governor, highlighting significant educational investments, contested the figures and emphasized the state’s commitment to reducing this number through substantial educational reforms which should have by now reflected in the figure.

Governor Radda argued that the UNICEF statistics, released in January 2024, do not reflect the recent strides made in Katsina’s educational landscape. Governor Radda mentioned that they had conducted baseline surveys on education, but these might not have been completed or analyzed in time to counter the UNICEF data. He noted, “As last year, we are able to do a baseline survey on education, the number of schools, the number of pupils that we have realistically in the state.”

He called for an updated assessment to better reflect current efforts, stating “I’m not sitting here to deny facts… but what I’m saying is the figures must have changed by now because we have invested in education and we are talking about a figure that was given last year and I believe with what we have done in Education that figure must have reduced.” This statement underscores a call for an updated assessment to better reflect current efforts.

Since taking office, the Katsina State government has made education a top priority, evidenced by its budgetary allocations and infrastructure development. According to Radda, “If you look at our budget 2024 and the budget 2025, education has the highest budgetary allocation.” The state has not only focused on funding but also on practical enhancements in the educational sector. “We have recruited over 7,000 new teachers in the state at once,” he noted, indicating a direct approach to increasing educational capacity.

Moreover, the governor gave details of the state’s education infrastructure initiatives, saying, “We are building more than 150 new junior and secondary schools because those are the priority… 75 of those schools are completed.” He stated that the effort is aimed at addressing the transition challenges from primary to secondary education, where a shortage of educational facilities was evident.

Governor Radda also spoke about the qualitative improvements, including teacher welfare, training, and infrastructure development. “We invested about 120 billion Naira in education in terms of training the teachers, improving on the infrastructure, building new schools, building more classrooms, enhancing the capacity, and also improving the welfare of the teachers,” he explained, emphasizing the steps taken on improving the well-being of Teachers in the state.

To ensure accurate data collection for future reviews, Katsina State has established its own Bureau of Statistics. This move is intended to provide a more localized and precise understanding of educational metrics. “We have created an agency called Bureau of Statistics in the state so that we can get the true picture of what we have in our state,” Radda commented, highlighting the importance of reliable data for policy-making.

The governor’s critique of the UNICEF data also touches on the broader implications of how such statistics can affect policy and public perception, especially when they do not account for recent governmental actions. While acknowledging the ongoing issue of out-of-school children, Radda stressed the state’s proactive measures, “We are not in denial of any of these facts… this is something that was inherited over time and this figure has been reducing over time.”

This call for a data review by Governor Radda is not just a rebuttal but an invitation for collaboration with international bodies like UNICEF to ensure that the data reflects current realities. It suggests a dynamic approach to education governance where feedback loops between policy implementation and data are crucial for effective outcomes.