The Federal Government has said it has returned two million out of the 20 million out-of-school children back to classrooms.

Specifically, the government said the school children are Almajiris who were enrolled in basic schools and Arabic literacy programmes with vocational training.

Education Minister, Professor Tahir Mamman state this on Tuesday in Abuja at the maiden Quarterly Citizens and Stakeholders Engagement.

Mamman presented the Ministerial Deliverables and scorecard of the Education Sector to participants which included heads of agencies and departments under the ministry as well as civil society organisations, international development partners,

The Minister said the ministry under his watch has developed the guidelines and training manuals for the implementation of inclusive Basic Education in Nigeria.

“These have increased access, enrolment, and retention completion at both basic, secondary, and tertiary school levels”, he said.

In December last year, the Federal Ministry of Education promised to return 15m children back to school by 2027 as part of its Education Roadmap (2024 to 2027).

The Guardian reports that a report by the World Bank indicates that Nigeria is faced with a staggering learning crisis, with about 70 per cent of children in schools who cannot read and write or perform basic numeracy tasks by age 10.

Also, according to a 2022 report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Nigeria has an over 20 million out-of-school children, the highest in Africa and third globally.

He listed his top priorities to include: building a reliable and authentic database for the sector, promoting skills development and acquisition as well as reducing by a great percentage, the number of out-of-school children.

He disclosed that the 12-member investigative panel constituted in January this year, to probe phony universities selling fake educational credentials to Nigerians would soon submit its report with earthshaking discoveries.

Mamman told the gathering that peddlers of fake certificates would be traced to their employers and investigated.

His words: “Talking about accreditation of certificates, some two, three months ago, the issue of fake certificates flooding the country and a high-powered inter-ministerial committee was set up.

“That committee is rounding off its work. And from what I heard, we have major breakthroughs about fake certificates flooding this country.

“So as we promised earlier on, once we get the report, not only will it help the ministry strengthen its recognition and accreditation of certificates but those who patronize fake certificates will have themselves to blame. Because we are going to trace them with the help of security agencies, to their employers so they are all flushed out of the system. And in appropriate cases investigated.”