The Federal Government has made it that work is ongoing to criminalise parents who refuse to send their children to school, adding that such parents may also be prosecuted.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, stated this on Monday in Abuja during a press conference on the Federal Government’s intervention in the basic education sub-sector.
Adamu said the ministry had demanded the criminalisation of the act of not sending children to school as well as the possible prosecution of such parents.
The minister said although the responsibility for basic education belonged to the state and local governments, the Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education Commission had provided matching grants and other interventions to the 36 states to empower the basic education sub-sector.
“The ministry is calling not just for the criminalisation of this act, because something is already being done on that, but for putting the law into effect. Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto State Governor, once did something similar to this. Unless not sending children to school is made a crime, and parents who refuse to send their children to school are prosecuted, we may not see the desired changes.
I agree that not sending children to school should be criminalised and it will be done. In the last four years, the Federal Government’s funding of basic education has increased significantly, despite low earnings from oil prices.
“The minister added that the refusal of some states to provide their counterpart fund so as to access the UBEC fund forced the Federal Government to deduct the money from their allocations so that the education sector would not suffer, The Federal Government’s intervention, he said, had hit N350bn in the last four years.
