Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State are trading words over the plight of out-of-school children in the state.

Publicity Secretary of Kwara PDP, Olusegun Adewara, stated, yesterday, that the number of out-of-school children in the state was 84,247 in 2018, when his party held sway. “The situation surged to 141,325 in 2022, an increase of 68 per cent, in just three years of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq,” he added.

Adewara posited that the claim that Kwara improved school enrolment by 48.7 per cent at the basic level and that learning deprivation in public schools was reduced from 70.8 per cent to 51.6 per cent between 2019 and 2023 was not only an attempt to twist reality but deceit.

He challenged the state government to furnish the citizens with sources of their data or apologise for misleading the populace.

“Despite the over N14 billion the Abdulrahman government claimed to have expended on basic education since 2019, which was accessed from Universal Basic education Commission (UBEC), government schools in Kwara are still in pitiable state, with many not even suitable for pigs’ pen.”

But his APC counterpart, Tajudeen Folaranmi, reasoned that the out-of-school phenomenon, which, for Kwara and other states, is a function of many variables such as migration patterns, cultural beliefs and poor attitude of some guardians, is being tackled through various strategies.

“Such strategies include public enlightenment and a carrot-and-stick approach in communities where children of school age are compelled to go to farm during school hours. Since 2018, out-of-school children’s data represented the realities of the previous year (2017). It is expected that PDP would show the data for 2019 or even 2020 to properly situate its full realities,” he stated.