The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has partnered with traditional rulers and religious leaders to tackle Nigeria’s out-of-school children crisis through community mobilisation, household identification and increased school enrolment.

The initiative was announced in a statement issued by the Office of the Executive Secretary of UBEC on Thursday, November 5, 2026, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the commission and the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development.

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Under the agreement, traditional and religious institutions will help identify children who are not attending school and encourage their enrolment in nearby schools.

The partnership will also introduce community-level monitoring of pupils’ attendance, retention and completion to reduce school dropouts.

The partners plan to establish national, state and local coordinating committees to drive education advocacy and grassroots participation, particularly in underserved communities where poverty, cultural barriers and other social challenges restrict access to schooling.

The agreement also provides for the production and distribution of advocacy materials in Hausa, Fulfulde and Yoruba, alongside household-level identification of out-of-school children.

UBEC Executive Secretary, Aisha Garba, said the partnership reflected the Federal Government’s recognition that addressing the crisis required more than funding and infrastructure.

She stressed that traditional and religious leaders were essential to the initiative because of their influence over community values, family decisions and grassroots mobilisation.

“Traditional and religious leaders are indispensable to the success of this initiative, given their influence in shaping community values, guiding family decisions and mobilising grassroots support,” Garba said.

She added that the programme would pay particular attention to girls, whose access to education remains restricted by social and cultural barriers in some communities.

According to her, accountability mechanisms would be introduced to recognise communities, schools and traditional leaders that record measurable improvements in educational access.

Garba said the success of the partnership would be assessed through increased enrolment, improved attendance and retention, stronger learning outcomes and a sustained reduction in the number of children outside the school system.

The initiative comes amid Nigeria’s persistent basic education challenges, with millions of school-age children still outside formal education despite the Universal Basic Education programme and the provision of free and compulsory basic education under the UBE Act of 2004.

UNICEF’s 2025 Nigeria Annual Report identified 10.2 million out-of-school children, with 45 per cent in the North-West and 28 per cent in the North-East.

The figures highlight the concentration of the crisis in regions affected by insecurity, poverty, displacement and inadequate access to functional schools.

In May 2026, the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the Federal Government had returned more than one million children to classrooms within 30 months through its interventions.

He also disclosed that the government was conducting a nationwide mapping exercise to obtain more accurate figures of out-of-school children and identify their locations through geotagging.

The Federal Ministry of Education has also highlighted its Back2School Drive and interactive out-of-school children dashboard as part of efforts to identify affected children, support enrolment and improve the targeting of interventions.

However, UNICEF reported that only 70 per cent of Nigerian children and young people aged three to 24 attended school in 2025.

Attendance stood at 51 per cent in rural communities, compared with 75 per cent in urban areas.

Garba also disclosed that UBEC, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education and State Universal Basic Education Boards, had facilitated the construction of more than 4,900 classrooms and the renovation of existing school facilities nationwide.

She said the commission had provided water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, with the infrastructure interventions benefiting more than 2.3 million learners by the end of 2025.

Other interventions include community-driven school improvement programmes and teacher professional development initiatives aimed at strengthening school management and improving teaching and learning outcomes.

Also speaking, Kebbi State Deputy Governor, Senator Umar Tafida, who represented Governor Nasir Idris, commended the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development for its contributions to health and social development, particularly through interventions supported by development partners, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Tafida said the state appreciated the foundation’s efforts to improve the welfare and educational opportunities of vulnerable children.

He described the foundation’s support for disadvantaged children as a reflection of the values of Islam and humanity and conveyed the governor’s goodwill to UBEC, the Sultan Foundation and the Nasara Foundation.

Garba assured that the commission would continue working with state governments, traditional institutions and development partners to expand access to quality basic education and strengthen ongoing reforms.

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She maintained that sustained government investment, institutional coordination and stronger community ownership would be necessary to address the country’s longstanding education challenges.