The Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Alhaji Abdullahi Dabo says 76,300 girls are out of school in the state.

Dabo made this known in Bage, Shira Local Government Area Thursday at the 2014/2015 School Enrolment Drive Campaign’’ in the state.

He was represented by the Board’s Permanent Commissioner Four, Alhaji Kasim Ibrahim, who said that the figure was collated from 466 communities in the state between March and April, with financial and technical support from UNICEF. 

The figure shows that there is still a lot of work to be done to improve on the situation if our girls must be properly and adequately educated.

"If we want to successfully fight poverty in our communities, we must ensure that our girls who are among the most vulnerable in every community are properly and adequately educated.

With education, employment opportunities will be broadened, income levels increased and maternal and child health will also be improved.’’

According to him, the state government had introduced free education as part of efforts to ensure people of the state were educated.

He noted that the alarming rate of out of school children in the state necessitated SUBEB to organise the enrolment campaign to ensure that community, religious and traditional leaders, especially parents were sensitised and encouraged to enroll all children of five to six years in school.

The chairman expressed sadness over the recurrent mass failure being recorded in West African Examination Council (WAEC) examinations in the state in spite of huge budgetary allocation to the education sector.

 "In spite of this sad development, the current administration would not relent in its effort to improve accessibility by renovating and building more schools".

 Also speaking, Hajiya Tasoro Danjebo, a renowned educationist and women’s  advocate in the state, decried the attitude of some parents who deny their children western education.

 Danjebo said denying a girl child education was like endangering the society by increasing the rate of poverty.

"When you deny a woman education, you have only succeeded in casting a gloomy shadow on the immediate future of your family. This is because an uneducated woman cannot properly take care of herself and the home, neither can she take good care of the children".

"But if you educate your girls, especially in western education, she will learn her religion, how to keep herself, and become a useful member of the society.’’

She said ``with all these advantages, I see no reason why parents should deny their children western education.’’

Danjebo urged parents to send their children to school so as to save them from becoming destitutes and liabilities in the future.

In his remarks, Ahaji Aliyu Misau, the Chairman, Private Schools Proprietors in the state, described education as the bedrock of meaningful development in every society.

Misau said that every society could only develop if the children were enrolled in schools and supported to become doctors, engineers and scientists among others.

He called on all parents to seize the opportunity provided by governments at all levels to ensure that their children were enrolled.