On Wednesday, a Nigerian tweep stirred a debate on social media as he shared some data to debunk a claim that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in Africa.

The tweep, with Twitter handle @solonso1, wrote: “Please be careful of the news you get from Nigerian journalists and their so-called media houses. [While] streaming ⁦@channelstv and the reporter said Nigeria has the highest out-of-school children. I was very perturbed and did a quick check. Here is what I found.”

The data table shared by the tweep showed that Nigeria takes 18th place among a list of 20 African countries with the highest number of out-of-school children.

Some tweeps who viewed the data on the surface level believed that Nigerian media houses only project the country in a bad light.

Pls be careful of the News you get from Nigerian journalists& their so called media houses. Streaming ⁦@channelstv⁩ & the reporter said Nigeria has the highest out of school children. I Was very perturbed & did a quick check, here is what I found . Ire oo pic.twitter.com/Ka9Yury8MU

— Sol (@solonso1) July 19, 2023

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CLAIM: Nigeria is not the African country with the highest out-of-school children as stated by a reporter at Channels TV.

VERIFICATION: FIJ found that he table shared by the tweep was obtained from World Top 20 Project, a platform that gathers educational data from early childhood to college to prepare a database for each category.

The platform, which quoted the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as its source, showed the percentage of out-of-school children against the total population of each of the listed countries.

What this means is that if there are 1000 out-of-school children in a country with a population of 50,000 and 1000 in another country with 25,000 people, the former will have a lower percentage than the latter.

In this instance, the percentage of 1000 out-of-school children in a country with 50,000 people is 2 percent while the same number of out-of-school children in a country with 25,000 people is 4 percent.

Also, the figure for the second country can further increase or decrease if the number of children out of school is higher or lower than 1000.

It is no longer news that Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa. As of July 16, Worldmetre revealed that Nigeria had a population of over 200 million while Ethiopia, the second most populated African country, has over 100 million people.

According to the table cited by the tweep, Nigeria has 29.5 percent of affected children while Somalia has 71.5 percent. But considering that Nigeria’s population is far higher than Somalia’s 18 million population, it is expected that the percentage value would vary.

A September 2022 report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) revealed that there are 244 million out-of-school children and youth between the ages of 6 and 18 worldwide, and 98 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa.

With 20 million children and youth out of school in Nigeria, UNESCO stated that it is the country with the third largest out-of-school population in the world after India and Pakistan. The report also notes that it is the country with the largest population of out-of-school children of primary school age.

In its Country Office Annual Report 2022, UNICEF disclosed that the number of out-of-school children in Somalia had increased to 4.84 million.

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CONCLUSION: The data table shared to refute Channels TV reporter’s assertion that Nigeria has the highest out-of-school children in Africa is misleading because it only shows the percentage value and not the actual number.

VERDICT: Available data shows that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school population in Africa.