The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Education Manager, Mr. Jutaro Sakamioto, said one in four children in Nigeria is out of school and 75% of Nigerian children have not developed functional learning skills that are essential. for advanced knowledge and skills.

Speaking at the celebration of the 2024 African Statistics Day in Abuja, Sakamioto said education is one of the most important investments of any government.

He noted that education not only equips children and youth with the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in the labor market and society, but also boosts the country’s economic and social development.

The theme of the event was “Supporting education by modernizing the production of fit-for-purpose statistics”.

Sakamioto noted that countries with educated and productive citizens enjoy spillover effects such as increased tax revenue, lower crime rates and improved democracy with active citizenship.

He said: “This is why so many countries in the world make education a national priority. The potential for investment in education is particularly high in Nigeria, where the child population is growing at a rapid rate.”

Sakamioto, however, pointed out that Nigeria faces significant education challenges due to the high number of out-of-school children and poor learning outcomes.

“According to the Multiple Indicator Survey, a nationwide household survey implemented by the National Bureau of Statistics with support from UNICEF, one in four children are out of school and 75% of children are not developing fundamental learning skills that are essential. to develop advanced knowledge and skills,” he said.

He explained that the challenges are due to various bottlenecks, including supply-side and demand-side factors. However, he identified the lack of data as one of the most critical transversal barriers.

Sakamioto pledged that UNICEF, together with other development partners, will continue to support the government in transforming data governance and ecosystems in the education sector.

In his speech at the event, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, urged Nigerians to free themselves from what he called “data imperialism”.

He lamented the country’s dependence on other nations for its data, noting that some countries have unfair advantages in data generation and presentation.

The minister encouraged Nigeria and Africa to use their own data to tell their stories.

Bagudu said: “Today, the market power of Amazon or Google determines what I buy. When, unfortunately, COVID hit the world, we saw data companies showing data about people’s movement.

“And it just shows that, in a way – I’m sorry to use this word – maybe data imperialism is still very active, in the sense that some companies or some countries have an undue advantage when it comes to generating data and how which data are presented. .

“So I understand that we have to recognize that and compensate for it so that we also use the data in a way that we tell our story.”

He added that one story he would like to hear is an objective determination of how much investment a country of 230 million people needs to ensure a good life for everyone. “I think there is. We can’t find it,” he said.

The minister said that all data generated by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) are independent of government influence and are reliable enough to avoid miscommunication.

The Statistician General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, recalled that Friday last week marked the conclusion of the first annual conference of the recently established Chartered Institute of Statisticians of Nigeria (CISON) which had a similar theme: “Mainstreaming Innovative Statistical Approaches to Understanding and Solving Challenges economy of Nigeria.”

He said the conference demonstrated that the SNB is increasingly aware of the systemic challenges facing the country and is ready to take the necessary steps to address them.

According to Adeniran, data shows that entities that innovate see, on average, a 30% increase in value compared to non-innovators and outperform them by 11% in total revenue annually.

He noted that the NBS has adopted the mantra of innovation to remain relevant in fulfilling the requirements of its mandate.

“This is in line with the Data Innovation Lab (DIL) initiative of the African Development Bank and the Roadmap for Transforming and Modernizing Official Statistics in Africa supported by the African Center for Statistics,” he said. “Accordingly, we have established an office of data innovation within the Bureau to advance, monitor and track all data innovation initiatives within our production and dissemination processes.”

Adeniran explained that this can be seen in all aspects of the Bureau’s work, including the data it produces, the methodologies it adopts and the way it plans its investigations.

“All of this is to ensure that we deliver the right data, which is a critical tool for development, to all our users in a timely manner and in a way that is useful and appropriate to their needs,” he said.