Jane Salihu
The Federal Government is repositioning Nigeria’s education sector around skills development, reliable data and long-term planning as it seeks to prepare the country’s youthful population for emerging economic opportunities and challenges.
According to the Minister of Education’s Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah, the Minister, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, made the submission in Abuja while receiving the outcomes of the 2025 Nigeria 2050: Child Foresight Analysis for Futures Literacy and Intergenerational Equity, a flagship initiative of the Anticipatory Governance and Foresight Capacity Programme of the Office of the Vice President, implemented with technical support from UNICEF.
Alausa said the findings were particularly significant for Nigeria because about 70 per cent of the country’s estimated 220 million population is below the age of 30, making education, skills development and productive opportunities critical to converting the youthful population into a demographic dividend.
He said the government must deliberately prepare young Nigerians for the future through quality education, relevant skills, productive opportunities and long-term planning.
According to the Minister, the reforms being implemented under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda were already producing tangible changes across the education sector.
Alausa said the Nigerian Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI) was driving reforms covering Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), STEM education, teacher quality, quality assurance, reduction of out-of-school children, education data and digitalisation.
He described skills development as central to Nigeria’s future, stressing that the country could no longer afford an education system that failed to prepare young people for the demands of a rapidly changing economy.
“Skills are the present and the future,” he said.
The Minister explained that technical education, which previously provided pathways for young Nigerians to become skilled workers, artisans, entrepreneurs and professionals, had suffered years of neglect and declining public confidence.
He said the Federal Government was now deliberately restoring TVET to the centre of the education system because of its potential to improve employment, productivity and economic growth.
Alausa also linked investments in medical education and professional training to efforts to address skills shortages in the health sector and reduce pressures driving Nigerians to seek opportunities abroad.
He said the government was expanding access to nursing and other health professional training through existing teaching hospitals, federal medical centres and specialist hospitals.
The Minister said the objective was to increase the number of Nigerians who could acquire high-quality professional training at home while developing a workforce capable of competing internationally.
Alausa also highlighted the administration’s growing reliance on education data to tackle the out-of-school challenge and improve resource allocation.
He questioned longstanding estimates that put Nigeria’s out-of-school population at between 15 million and 17 million, saying the figures had often been cited without comprehensive household-level verification.
According to him, emerging findings from state-level household surveys indicate that the actual number may differ significantly from previous estimates.
He cited Kaduna State, where a household survey covering more than 90 per cent of households reportedly produced an out-of-school figure of less than 190,000, compared with an earlier estimate of about 585,000.
Alausa also referred to another Kaduna estimate of about 1.2 million out-of-school children which, according to him, fell to less than 100,000 after a general household survey.
Jigawa State, he added, had equally recorded significant differences between existing estimates and the findings of its own household-level assessment.
The Minister stressed that even if the national figure eventually proves lower than previously estimated, every child outside school remains a concern that requires urgent intervention.
“Even if there’s significant reduction, any child out of school is still too many,” he said.
Alausa disclosed that more than one million children had been moved from the streets into school nationally over the past two and a half years, while Jigawa State alone had reportedly moved more than 180,000 children into school within the last two years.
He said the next challenge was to sustain enrolment, keep children in school and prevent new cases of school exclusion.
To strengthen education planning, the Minister said the Federal Government was deploying digital systems to generate more reliable information about schools and learners.
He disclosed that more than 56 per cent of public schools had entered their 2026 Annual School Census information, while 41 per cent of private schools had populated their records on the digitised Nigerian Education Management Information System (NEMIS).
Alausa described the development as a major step towards strengthening education planning and accountability.
“Without data, you’re flying blind. Data will tell you everything,” he said.
According to him, accurate data would enable government to identify where children are out of school, understand the reasons for their exclusion, target infrastructure and interventions more effectively and monitor whether children who return to school remain there.
The Minister also disclosed that the Ministry had conducted a national assessment to establish a baseline for literacy, numeracy and cognitive development among learners at primary, junior secondary and senior secondary levels.
He said the exercise would provide a clearer picture of learning outcomes and enable government to measure the effectiveness of interventions over time.
Alausa said the data-driven approach was directly relevant to the Nigeria 2050 Child Foresight Analysis because securing the future of Nigerian children required government to anticipate challenges rather than merely respond to them after they occur.
He commended the Office of the Vice President, the Office for Strategic Preparedness and Resilience (OSPRE) and UNICEF for supporting the foresight initiative, describing it as an important instrument for moving Nigeria from reactive governance towards anticipatory action.
The Minister said the Ministry would work to align the findings of the foresight analysis with NESRI, particularly in future literacy, long-term education planning, skills development, data systems and intergenerational equity.
Alausa further declared that President Tinubu had delivered on almost 100 per cent of the promises made during the 2023 presidential campaign, insisting that the country was witnessing tangible changes under the administration.
He said the President’s commitment to education was evident in the support being provided to the Federal Ministry of Education to implement reforms aimed at preparing young Nigerians for a more competitive economy.
“I can assure you of that one fact because today we have a President who is leading the country, managing this country from the front, with the highest level of integrity, commitment, patriotism and determination to change the face of this country,” Alausa said.
He added that the country was no longer at a crossroads but had “a lot of catching up to do.”
The Minister said the ultimate measure of the reforms would be whether Nigerian children and young people receive quality education, acquire relevant skills, access productive opportunities and contribute meaningfully to national development.
He urged stakeholders to move beyond theoretical projections and connect the findings of the foresight initiative to practical reforms capable of shaping the lives of future generations.
The 2025 Nigeria 2050: Child Foresight Analysis for Futures Literacy and Intergenerational Equity is part of the Anticipatory Governance and Foresight Capacity Programme of the Office of the Vice President, with technical support from UNICEF. The initiative examines the risks, opportunities and drivers likely to shape the lives of Nigerian children and young people towards 2050, with the aim of strengthening futures literacy, anticipatory governance and intergenerational equity in national planning.
