Kano State has an estimated 875,593 children aged between five and 18 years out of school, a new survey conducted across the state’s 44 Local Government Areas has revealed.
The findings were presented on Thursday by the Kano State Commissioner for Education, Dr Ali Haruna Makoda.
The survey, conducted in March 2026, estimated that 13.34 per cent of the 6.56 million children aged five to 18 in the state are out of school.
It is described as the first statistically representative assessment of out-of-school children in Kano in more than a decade.
The assessment was conducted by the State Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria (PLANE), with funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and support from the Kano State Bureau of Statistics.
According to the report, 6,233, representing 86.67 per cent, of the 7,192 children surveyed were enrolled in school, while 959, or 13.34 per cent, were out of school.
Of the children identified as being out of school, 501 had never attended school, while 458 had previously attended but later dropped out.
Wide disparities across LGAs
The findings showed significant variations in school attendance across the state’s 44 LGAs, with some recording out-of-school rates of 40 per cent or higher, while others recorded rates below five per cent.
Doguwa LGA recorded the highest out-of-school rate at 40 per cent, followed by Warawa at 34.69 per cent and Gaya at 33.86 per cent.
The report classified the situation in the three LGAs as an emergency-level education exclusion crisis requiring immediate intervention.
Parents support children’s education
The survey also challenged the perception that cultural resistance to formal education is a major driver of the out-of-school children crisis in Kano.
It found that 99.6 per cent of caregivers considered children’s education either important or very important, with only eight respondents expressing a negative view of education.
The report consequently identified the crisis largely as a service delivery and equity challenge rather than a problem of parental attitudes towards education.
“Parents want school for their children; the system is failing to make it accessible, affordable, and of sufficient quality to retain children once enrolled,” the report stated.
The survey identified five broad categories of barriers to school attendance: family and cultural reasons, school-related challenges, child-related factors, other factors, and financial or economic constraints.
Family and cultural factors accounted for 24.2 per cent of responses, followed by school-related challenges at 23.6 per cent, child-related factors at 21.6 per cent, other reasons at 21.4 per cent, and financial or economic constraints at 12.6 per cent.
The report recommended a coordinated, multi-sectoral response, stressing that the scale and complexity of the crisis require more than a single intervention.
Boys constitute larger share
The findings further showed that boys constituted 54.2 per cent of Kano’s out-of-school population, compared with 45.8 per cent for girls.
The report linked the higher proportion of boys largely to participation in the Almajiri/Qur’anic education system and engagement in casual labour.
Despite the disparity, about 90.9 per cent of parents surveyed supported equal access to education for boys and girls.
The findings are expected to provide a baseline for tracking Kano State’s progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.
