The Gombe State Government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to address the state’s rising population of out-of-school children, estimated to be more than 700,000.
Speaking at a one-day stakeholders’ engagement meeting for the 2025 Enrolment Drive Campaign on Monday, the state’s Commissioner for Education, Professor Aishatu Maigari, said the initiative is part of efforts by Governor Inuwa Yahaya’s administration to reduce the crisis and provide opportunities for children across the state.
The meeting, organised by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and UNICEF, brought together traditional rulers, religious leaders, educationists and policymakers.
Professor Maigari explained that the government has harmonised data on out-of-school children by age, gender and disability status to ensure targeted interventions.
“This data-driven approach has enabled us to implement the Retention, Transition, and Completion (RTC) model, which helps identify vocational skills for out-of-school children and Almajiri pupils. They undergo six to nine months of intensive coaching to prepare them for SSCE, WAEC, and MBIS examinations,” she said.
She also highlighted the introduction of the Accelerated Senior Secondary Education Programme, designed for older learners who cannot restart from primary school.
The chairman of SUBEB, Babaji Babadidi, said the campaign seeks to rally community support for education and ensure children are enrolled at the right time.
According to him, each of the state’s 11 local government areas has been tasked with enrolling at least 10,000 new pupils in the 2025/2026 academic year, bringing the total target to 110,000. He expressed optimism that this strategy could cut the number of out-of-school children in the state by half before 2030.
A representative of UNICEF’s Bauchi Field Office, Mohammed Kudi, underscored the scale of the challenge, noting that over 80 per cent of children in Nigeria are currently out of school. “In Gombe, the figure has risen from 500,000 to about 737,000, representing 13 per cent of the state’s population. Awareness and collaboration are critical to reversing this trend,” he said.
Stakeholders at the meeting pledged support for the campaign, urging government at all levels to sustain investment in education and ensure that children not only return to school but also remain until completion.
