The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, has announced a major shift in Nigeria’s strategy for tackling the out-of-school children crisis, adopting Kaduna State’s household mapping model as the national framework for identifying and returning affected children to classrooms.
The announcement, contained in a statement by the Minister’s Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah, followed a meeting between Alausa and Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani. The new approach will replace reliance on broad estimates with household-level data to accurately identify every out-of-school child across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Under the initiative, the Federal Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), will conduct a nationwide household mapping exercise to determine the exact number of out-of-school children, their locations and the households they belong to. The data will guide governments in designing targeted interventions and deploying resources more effectively.
Alausa said the country had relied for years on projections that did not accurately reflect the true scale and location of the problem. According to him, the new methodology provides verified information that will improve planning, policy formulation and service delivery.
Using Kaduna State as an example, the minister noted that previous estimates placed the state’s out-of-school population at about 585,000. However, a household mapping exercise conducted by the Kaduna State Government revealed that the actual figure is fewer than 200,000.
“With this exercise, we now know where these children are and the households they belong to. That gives us the opportunity to work closely with the Kaduna State Government to bring them back to school,” Alausa said.
He commended Governor Uba Sani for pioneering a model that offers a clearer picture of the challenge and demonstrates how reliable data can strengthen decision-making in the education sector.
Governor Uba Sani, in his remarks, praised both the Minister of Education and the Minister of State for Education for driving reforms in the sector. He also acknowledged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s support for education, saying it had created momentum for meaningful reforms nationwide.
The governor reaffirmed Kaduna State’s commitment to partnering with the Federal Ministry of Education to expand access to quality education, expressing satisfaction that the state’s household mapping initiative had become the template for nationwide implementation.
Alausa however assured Nigerians that no child would be left behind, stressing that the nationwide mapping exercise would strengthen collaboration with state governments and development partners while ensuring more out-of-school children are identified, enrolled and retained in school under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
