Nigeria: One Million Out-of-School Children Return to Classrooms in 20 Months - Govt

What the report says

Nigeria’s federal government says more than one million out-of-school children have returned to classrooms over the past 20 months, describing the figure as a major step in its education reform programme. The announcement was made in Abuja by Education Minister Maruf Tunji Alausa during a courtesy visit from UNESCO’s newly appointed Nigeria representative, Professor Isaiah Barreto Da Rosa, according to Vanguard as distributed by AllAfrica.

Alausa said the administration wants to build on recent progress in access to schooling while also addressing broader problems affecting quality and inclusion. He pointed to six priorities in the reform agenda: technical and vocational education, STEM, reintegration of out-of-school children, data and digital systems, girl-child education and quality assurance. He also said the government is investing in teacher development and using education data to identify gaps and measure results.

The minister highlighted nearly 6.7 million girls reached by interventions aimed at improving enrolment and retention, while warning that boys should not be neglected in efforts to fix Nigeria’s education gap. He urged closer cooperation with UNESCO, especially on teacher training and technical support aligned with government programmes.

Da Rosa said UNESCO is ready to support Nigeria’s education agenda and noted the agency’s long presence in the country. He said UNESCO-backed initiatives have trained more than 28,000 teachers and reached over 1.7 million students. More broadly, the report reflects Nigeria’s continuing challenge of getting children into school and keeping them there, even as officials say reform efforts are beginning to show results.