Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, says the Federal Government has succeeded in returning more than one million out-of-school children from the streets back into classrooms within the last 30 months.
The minister made the disclosure on Tuesday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he addressed concerns over Nigeria’s rising out-of-school children population.
His remarks come amid recent figures released by UNESCO and UNICEF estimating that about 18.3 million Nigerian children are currently not in school.
According to Alausa, the figure frequently quoted by international organisations has remained unchanged for nearly a decade and does not accurately reflect ongoing interventions by the Federal Government.
“Talking about data, this UNESCO data, UNICEF data, 18.3 million, is the same number that has been quoted for 10 years,” the minister said.
“We do not need to challenge it, and I do not need to get into rhetoric,” he added.
Alausa explained that the Federal Government is currently carrying out a nationwide data-mapping exercise aimed at generating more precise figures on out-of-school children across the country.
“What we are doing is data mapping of our out-of-school children as we continue aggressive interventions to move children back to school,” he stated.
“Today, I can tell you that we have moved over one million children on the streets back to school in the last 30 months.”
The minister disclosed that the government has started geotagging out-of-school children in several states as part of efforts to identify their exact locations and obtain accurate records.
According to him, the process involves tracing children through their addresses and documenting their locations to build a more reliable national database.
“UNESCO, UNICEF can quote their data, and others may say 15 million. What I am telling you is that we are now doing detailed mapping of these children,” Alausa said.
He revealed that the exercise has already been conducted in seven to eight states across the federation.
“We are geotagging out-of-school children and locating where they are through their addresses,” he explained.
The minister used Kaduna State as an example, noting that the findings from the government’s mapping exercise differed significantly from existing international estimates.
“UNICEF data says Kaduna has 1.8 million out-of-school children.
”We have completed the data mapping in Kaduna, and we found about 700,000 children who are out of school.
“Is that still high? Yes. But do we now have a more realistic number?
Absolutely, ” he said.
Alausa maintained that Nigeria’s actual number of out-of-school children was far lower than the widely quoted estimate of 18.5 million.
He expressed confidence that the ongoing verification and mapping exercise across all 36 states would eventually reveal a substantially lower figure.
“We are going to continue mapping all 36 states and then present our numbers.
“By the time we are done, we will have fewer than eight million out-of-school children, ” he stated.
The minister’s comments followed a 2024 UNICEF report which stated that Nigeria currently has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world.
According to the report, about 10.2 million children of primary school age and another 8.1 million children of junior secondary school age are not attending school in the country.
The report also indicated that about 66 per cent of the affected children are concentrated in Nigeria’s North-West and North-East regions.
In 2024, President Bola Tinubu described the out-of-school children crisis as “unacceptable” and pledged that education would remain a major priority of his administration.
The President also promised increased efforts toward school reintegration programmes, youth development and skills acquisition initiatives aimed at improving access to education nationwide.
