Investigation into Factors Responsible For Out of School Children in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria

This study investigated factors responsible for Out of School Children in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nigeria.Descriptive research was used in this study. The population of the study consisted of all 51,344 of Universal Basic Education teachers in the six area councils of FCT. The sample of the study were selected through random sampling, stratified and purposive sampling technique. Sample of 180 Basic teachers were selected and through. Twenty Basic teachers were selected from twenty Basic schools from each of the six area councils of FCT. An instrument titled “Out of School Children Questionnaire (OOSCQ) was developed by the researcher. The instrument has 20 items.  The item on (OOSCQ) were structured on modified four point Likert Scale with a range of Strongly Agree (SA) 4 points; Agree (A) 3 points;  Disagree (D) 2 points; and Strongly Disagree (SD) 1 point respectively. After the validation, the test of reliability was done through Pearson Product Movement Correlation and the result was 0.74 which is considered okay for the study. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the data generated from the study. The study concluded that poor implementation of UBE Programme, poor implementation of Child Act law, corruption, high fertility rate, insecurity challenges, and poverty and FCT as capital of Nigeria are the factors responsible for large out of school children in in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria. The result also revealed thathigh illiteracy rate, social problem (insecurity, crime activities) andBad international image are the implications of out of school children in Federal capital territory, Abuja, Nigeria. Based on these findings, the paper recommended that the governments should increase investment in the Basic education in Nigeria. The policies guiding the universal Basic education programme should be fully implemented. The Child Act should be domesticated in FCT and fully implemented. Government should address the corruption in the administration of the UBE programme through the use of all the anti-corruption agencies in the country