Auwalu Halilu
The Kano State Accountability Forum on Education (K-SAFE) warmly congratulates the Kano State Government, the Ministry of Education, and its development partners on the successful completion and presentation of the Kano State Out-of-School Children (OOSC) Household Survey Report 2026.
The conduct of this comprehensive survey across the 44 Local Government Areas of Kano State represents an important milestone in the State’s efforts to address one of its most critical educational challenges.
The availability of credible, disaggregated and geographically specific data provides Kano State with a stronger evidence base for planning, resource allocation, implementation, monitoring and accountability.
The findings demand urgent and sustained action. The survey estimates that 13.34% of children aged 5–18 are out of school, representing approximately 875,593 children across Kano State.
It further demonstrates significant disparities across Local Government Areas. It identifies multiple barriers relating to poverty and financial constraints, school-related factors, family and cultural circumstances, child-related factors, distance and other structural challenges.
Particularly encouraging is the finding that 99.6% of caregivers consider children’s education important or very important. This provides a powerful basis for action. It demonstrates that the challenge is not simply a lack of parental demand for education. Still, it is strongly connected to accessibility, affordability, quality, retention and the capacity of the education system to respond to the circumstances of vulnerable children and families.
K-SAFE therefore calls on the Kano State Government and all education stakeholders to ensure that this important survey does not end as a report, but becomes a roadmap for coordinated action to drastically reduce and ultimately eliminate the phenomenon of out-of-school children in Kano State.
In particular, K-SAFE advocates for the following priorities:
1. Make Basic Education Truly Compulsory and Accessible. Kano State should strengthen the implementation and enforcement of compulsory basic education while simultaneously addressing the barriers that prevent children from enrolling, attending and completing school. Enforcement should therefore go hand-in-hand with practical measures that make education accessible, affordable, safe, inclusive and attractive to children and their families.
2. Prioritise High-Burden LGAs and Communities The survey reveals major geographical disparities in OOSC rates. Government interventions should therefore be data-driven, with immediate attention given to LGAs, wards and communities with the highest OOSC burden. Resources should be targeted according to identified needs rather than applying uniform interventions across all communities.
3. Strengthen SUBEB and the Formal Basic Education System. The Kano State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) should be further strengthened to expand access, improve school infrastructure, provide adequate teachers and learning materials, strengthen school-level monitoring and improve the overall quality of basic education. Particular attention should be given to school proximity, teacher availability, retention and transition.
4. Expand and Strengthen Non-Formal and Alternative Education Formal schooling alone cannot adequately respond to the diverse circumstances of all out-of-school children. The Kano State Agency for Mass Education (SAME) should therefore receive increased institutional, financial, human and material support to expand flexible and community-based non-formal education programmes, literacy centres, second-chance education and vocational learning opportunities.
5. Strengthen Qur’anic, Tsangaya and Islamiyya Education Integration. The relevant Board responsible for Qur’anic, Islamiyya and Tsangaya education should be adequately supported to strengthen the integration of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN), basic education, life skills and vocational competencies into appropriate Qur’anic and Tsangaya learning environments. This is particularly important considering the survey’s findings concerning children attending Tsangaya/Almajiri schools and the significant representation of boys among the OOSC population.
6. Promote Technical, Vocational and Employability Skills. The Science and Technical Schools Board and other relevant technical and vocational education institutions should be strategically engaged in providing flexible skills-development pathways for older out-of-school children, adolescents and young people. Non-formal education should go beyond basic literacy and numeracy to include vocational skills, entrepreneurship, digital literacy, financial literacy and employability competencies that can support young people to transition into productive livelihoods.
7. Address the Economic and Social Barriers to Education. The survey demonstrates that the OOSC challenge is multi-dimensional. Education interventions should therefore be linked with social protection, poverty reduction, school feeding where feasible, community mobilisation, child protection, livelihood support and other measures that address the underlying conditions pushing children out of school.
8. Establish a Strong OOSC Monitoring and Accountability Framework. The 2026 survey should serve as a baseline for continuous monitoring. Kano State should establish an integrated OOSC tracking mechanism linking the Ministry of Education, SUBEB, SAME, relevant Qur’anic/Tsangaya education authorities, technical education institutions, Local Government structures, traditional institutions, civil society organisations and development partners.
A Collective Responsibility
K-SAFE believes that Kano State now has an important opportunity to move decisively from evidence to policy, from policy to implementation, and from implementation to measurable results.
Every child identified by this survey represents more than a statistic. Each represents a future that can be transformed through appropriate education, skills, protection and opportunity.
We therefore congratulate the Kano State Government and Ministry of Education for this important achievement and call upon all stakeholders government agencies, development partners, civil society organisations, traditional and religious leaders, communities, parents and the private sector to utilise the findings to build a coordinated and adequately resourced response.
The data are now available. The barriers are clearer. The priority must now be ACTION.
Together, Kano State can substantially reduce the number of out-of-school children and progressively ensure that every child has access to quality basic education, alternative learning opportunities and relevant skills for productive citizenship and sustainable livelihoods.
Congratulations to the Kano State Government and the Ministry of Education on this important milestone.
Auwal Halilu is the Co-chair(CSOs), Kano State Accountability Forum on Education (K-