PRESS RELEASE

AFRI-CIRD Commends Kaduna State's Landmark 2025/2026 Annual School Census and OOSC Mapping Reports; Unveils Strategic Framework for Sustained Educational Transformation

The African Centre for Innovative Research and Development (AFRI-CIRD) proudly extends its profound institutional commendation to the Kaduna State Government, under the dynamic leadership of Governor Uba Sani and Deputy Governor Dr Hadiza Balarabe, alongside the State Ministry of Education, the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), and international development partners, on the historic public release of the 2025/2026 Annual School Census (ASC) and Out-of-School Children (OOSC) Mapping Reports.

Representing a monumental paradigm shift in sub-national educational governance, this milestone replaces speculative estimates with empirical, household-level precision. Spanning over 360,000 households across all 23 local government areas through advanced digitised Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the report establishes an unshakeable evidentiary foundation for future sector planning. The newly unveiled census and mapping data provide critical diagnostic insights that lay bare the structural realities of basic education in the state:

1. Refined Out-of-School Metrics: The exhaustive household-level enumeration identified 187,719 children currently outside the formal learning ecosystem. This figure reflects a significant downward revision from earlier generalised estimates exceeding 500,000, illustrating the tangible dividends of sustained state investments, aggressive school feeding frameworks, and free basic education policies backed by a remarkable 25 per cent budgetary allocation to the education sector for the 2026 fiscal year.
2. Demographic Vulnerability Profiles: Analytical breakdowns reveal that 64.6 per cent of affected children are concentrated within the critical foundational cohort of 6 to 11 years. Furthermore, boys account for 56.7 per cent of out-of-school children, while girls comprise 43.3 per cent. Significantly, children living with disabilities constitute 1.43 per cent (over 4,000 individuals) of the total OOSC population, highlighting an urgent imperative for inclusive infrastructural design.
3. Socio-Economic and Geographic Determinants: Over 91 per cent of affected households explicitly cited abject poverty as the primary barrier preventing school entry or forcing premature withdrawal. Regionally, structural vulnerabilities are starkly concentrated, with the Kaduna North Senatorial Zone accounting for 51 per cent of the state's total OOSC burden, and specific local government areas like Kubau recording the highest concentrations.

The challenge of out-of-school children remains one of the most pressing human development hurdles in Nigeria. Speaking on the significance of Kaduna State's new framework, Mr Mohammed Bello, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AFRI-CIRD, emphasised that sustainable educational turnaround demands a bridge between high-level policy formulation and ground-level empirical reality.

Drawing from extensive sub-national policy engagements, including leading the domestication of the National Policy on education in Adamawa State, Gender Responsive Education Budgeting Framework in Kano State, the review of the National Policy Framework of Action to Reduce Out-of-School Children in Bauchi and Gombe states under UNICEF auspices, leading the Joint Education Needs Assessment 2025 in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) States, and conducting comprehensive School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) capacity assessments in Adamawa State, Mr Bello noted that strategic reports of this caliber provide the vital roadmap needed to transition from ad-hoc interventions to institutionalised systemic change.

"Kaduna State has demonstrated exemplary political will by institutionalising an evidence-based roadmap to bring our vulnerable children back into the classroom," stated Mr Bello. "However, the true measure of success will lie in rigorous implementation, transparent accountability, and robust cross-sectoral partnerships that mobilize non-state actors, local communities, and global best practices."

Recommendations

To guarantee the successful operationalisation and long-term sustainability of Kaduna State's strategic vision, AFRI-CIRD outlines a phased framework of recommendations:

1. Immediate Term (Months 1–6): Evidence-Based Deployment and Resource Targeting. During the immediate term spanning months 1 to 6, the focus must center on evidence-based deployment and resource targeting. This involves establishing an Executive State OOSC Taskforce within the first 90 days, which will be mandated to deploy geospatial mapping data for rational teacher deployment and infrastructural resource allocation, particularly prioritising high-burden local government areas such as Kubau, Giwa, Soba, and Makarfi. Concurrently, Milestone 1.2 requires scaling up conditional cash transfer (CCT) mechanisms and expanding school feeding coverage to directly mitigate the 91 per cent poverty-induced barrier identified among vulnerable households.
2. Medium Term (Months 6–18): Non-State Partnerships and Inclusive Infrastructure. Moving into the medium-term covering months 6 to 18, attention must shift toward forging non-state partnerships and building inclusive infrastructure. Milestone 2.1 calls for the institutionalisation of formal public-private partnerships (PPPs) with non-state educational providers and alternative learning systems, including integrated Tsangaya and Almajiri frameworks — to absorb out-of-school cohorts into flexible, quality learning spaces. Furthermore, Milestone 2.2 emphasises the construction, retrofitting, and resourcing of inclusive school facilities designed specifically to accommodate the over 4,000 identified children living with disabilities across the state.
3. Long Term (Months 18–36): Foundational Learning Retention and Institutional Sustainability. Finally, the long-term phase spanning months 18 to 36 focuses heavily on foundational learning retention and institutional sustainability. Under Milestone 3.1, the state must scale up evidence-based foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) models, such as Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) methodologies, to curb primary-level dropouts between Primary Four and Primary Six. To complement this, Milestone 3.2 advocates for revamping community accountability structures by empowering School-Based Management Committees (SBMCs) and Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) to rigorously monitor retention, transition rates, and school safety compliance.

As lauded by key international development stakeholders, including UNICEF and Save the Children International, Kaduna State's transition from guesswork to empirical household census tracking places it at the vanguard of educational reform in Nigeria. The subsequent adoption of Kaduna's trailblazing household mapping framework as a national benchmark underscores its profound replicability and strategic value.

AFRI-CIRD remains wholly committed to supporting sub-national Governments, civil society coalitions, and international development partners through advanced monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems, technical advisory services, and empirical policy design to ensure every child in Nigeria is successfully enrolled, retained, and equipped for a prosperous future.