The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund’s (UNICEF) efforts to accelerate access to quality education through its Learning Passport initiative is fast yielding significant results, with 1.4 million enrollees.

Despite frantic efforts by the federal government and partners to reduce the growing rate of out-of-school children in Northern Nigeria, UNICEF revealed that Kano ranked top in the country with 900,000 vulnerable children roaming the streets.

The country representative of UNICEF in Nigeria, Cristian Munduate, gave the account on Thursday while addressing journalists in Kano on the activities of UNICEF in health, education and nutrition in the region.

Munduate revealed that Nigeria Learning Passport, an online education model platform designed for basic and secondary levels, was meant to create access to quality education, essentially to less privileged children who are out of school.

Munduate explained that the collaborative efforts to check the raising level of out-of-school children has brought about 1.5 million children back to class in Northern Nigeria in two years.

The UNICEF chief, who was worried over the case of Kano out-of-school children believed the state government can accelerate the ugly trend to zero level in three years, with commitment and good will.

While suggesting possible solutions to the challenges of out-of-school children, poor health and malnutrition in Kano, Munduate tasked Northern government to rather de-emphasize challenges and adopt solutions to challenges.

As part of the solution to the health challenge, the UNICEF chief canvassed the establishment of a functional Primary Health Centre with the trust of providing 24 hours of service and immunization services with the employment of qualified midwives across the 484 wards of the state.

She equally called for political will of policies and implementation on health and education. While calling for increased budgetary provisions to the sector, she urged the government to ensure implementation and monitory of the resources for expected result.

” UNICEF is collaborating with Federal and state government to expand and accelerate access to education. The Nigeria Learning Passport has captured 500,000 children in 2022. The program is integrated and we have captured 1.4 million in 2023.

” The program is basically meant to support and provide platform for majority of students who are out of schools, a free access to quality learning system and quality teaching model for the teacher. We hope to increase the access in nearest future.