The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has disclosed that the Federal Government has returned over one million out-of-school children from the streets back to classrooms within the last 30 months.
Alausa made the revelation during an appearance on Channels Television, where he addressed concerns surrounding Nigeria’s out-of-school children crisis and ongoing education reforms under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The minister stated that the widely quoted figure of 18.3 million out-of-school children, often attributed to international organisations, no longer accurately reflects the current situation due to aggressive government interventions across the country.
According to him, the Federal Government has commenced a comprehensive data mapping and geotagging exercise aimed at identifying and documenting children currently outside the formal education system.
“Today, I can tell you that we have moved over one million children on the streets back to school in the last 30 months,” Alausa said.
He explained that the ongoing exercise focuses on physically locating and verifying out-of-school children rather than relying solely on long-standing international estimates.
Speaking on findings from Kaduna State, the minister noted that although previous UNICEF estimates placed the state’s out-of-school population at about 1.8 million, the government’s verification process identified approximately 700,000 children.
“Is that still high? Yes. But do we now have a more realistic number? Absolutely,” he stated.
Alausa expressed optimism that once the nationwide verification exercise is completed, Nigeria’s out-of-school population would drop significantly.
“By the time we are done, we will have fewer than eight million out-of-school children,” he added.
A 2024 report by UNICEF ranked Nigeria as the country with the highest number of out-of-school children globally, estimating that more than 18 million children were outside the classroom, particularly in the North-west and North-east regions.
The minister also defended the Federal Government’s decision to exempt candidates seeking admission into Colleges of Education and non-technology agricultural programmes from the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
According to him, the policy would expand access to tertiary education, boost enrolment and support Nigeria’s food security agenda.
He added that the reform could increase annual admissions into tertiary institutions to about 1.5 million candidates.
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