By Kwin Israel, The Sight News
The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Olatunji Alausa has announced a nationwide shift away from estimate-based planning in its efforts to address the crisis of out-of-school children, adopting Kaduna State’s household mapping model as the national standard for identifying and re-enrolling affected children.
Dr. Alausa disclosed the policy shift during a meeting with Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani, describing it as a landmark step toward resolving one of the country’s most persistent education challenges.
Under the new framework, the Ministry will collaborate with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to conduct a nationwide household-level mapping exercise, replacing broad projections with verified data on the exact number, location, and household affiliation of out-of-school children across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Dr. Alausa noted that past planning efforts had long relied on projections that failed to pinpoint where these children actually lived. He cited Kaduna State as a case in point: while earlier estimates placed the number of out-of-school children in the state at roughly 585,000, the household mapping exercise carried out by the state government revealed the actual figure to be 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,” the Minister said.
He commended Governor Sani for pioneering a model that has sharpened government understanding of the challenge and demonstrated how reliable data can strengthen decision-making and service delivery in education. The Ministry, he added, is already partnering with the NBS to replicate the methodology across the country, with the aim of enabling more effective resource deployment and progress monitoring.
Speaking at the meeting, Governor Uba Sani praised the Minister of Education and the Minister of State for Education for the reforms underway in the sector, describing their leadership as a source of encouragement to state governments. He also credited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for sustained federal support that he said has energized reform efforts nationwide.
The Governor reaffirmed Kaduna State’s commitment to continued collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education, describing education as one of the most important investments any government can make, and expressed satisfaction that the state’s model is now being scaled up nationally.
Dr. Alausa assured Nigerians that no child would be left behind, stating that the mapping exercise would provide the accurate data needed to strengthen state and development-partner collaboration and ensure more out-of-school children are identified, enrolled, and retained in school as part of the Renewed Hope Agenda.
