The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, says President Bola Tinubu has delivered almost 100 per cent of the promises he made during the 2023 presidential campaign.
He made the declaration in Abuja at the weekend, saying the country was now “back, and back in a powerful way,” with tangible reforms and changes being recorded across sectors.
The minister spoke 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 the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
According to a statement by the Special Assistant on Media and Communication to the Minister, Mr Ikharo Attah, the Child Foresight team was led to the Minister’s office by its Director-General, Chris Ngwodo, and Special Assistant on Special Duties to the Vice President, Mohammed Ahmed.
Alausa said the findings of the Child Foresight Analysis are particularly important given Nigeria’s youthful population, noting that about 70 per cent of the country’s estimated 220 million people are below the age of 30.
According to him, the demographic composition presents both an opportunity and a responsibility for government to deliberately transform the youthful population into a demographic dividend through quality education, relevant skills, productive opportunities and long-term planning.
He said the changes under the Tinubu administration are not mere political rhetoric but were being reflected in tangible reforms and outcomes, particularly in the education sector.
“These are not just rhetoric we are hearing now. These are things we are seeing, with a lot of tangible benefits and tangible change in the country,” he stated.
The Minister said three years into the administration, Nigeria had moved beyond the uncertainty that previously characterised national development and was now focused on consolidating its gains while addressing areas where more work was required.
Alausa said President Tinubu’s commitment to education was evident in the support given to the Federal Ministry of Education to implement reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
He insisted that education remains central to the ambition of the current administration on moving Nigeria towards a $1 trillion economy.
According to him, the Nigerian Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI) is driving reforms across the education system, with emphasis on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), STEM education, teacher quality, quality assurance, reducing the number of out-of-school children, and strengthening education data and digitalisation.
The Minister also linked investments in medical education and professional training to efforts to address the skills shortages contributing to the migration of Nigerian professionals.
He said Nigeria had faced shortages of nurses and other health professionals despite the large number of young Nigerians seeking opportunities to study in those fields, saying the government was responding by expanding access to nursing education and increasing training capacity in existing teaching hospitals, federal medical centres and specialist hospitals rather than relying solely on the construction of new institutions.
Alausa also disclosed that the Federal Government was adopting a data-driven approach to determine the actual number of out-of-school children in the country.
He questioned the long-standing estimates placing Nigeria’s out-of-school population at between 15 million and 17 million, saying the figures had been repeatedly cited without a sufficiently comprehensive household-level count.
According to him, emerging evidence from state-level household surveys suggests that the historical estimates may significantly overstate the actual number.
He cited Kaduna State, where a household survey covering more than 90 per cent of households reportedly recorded fewer than 190,000 out-of-school children, compared with an earlier estimate of about 585,000.
He also referred to another estimate of about 1.2 million children in Kaduna, which he said dropped to less than 100,000 following a general household survey.
Jigawa State, he added, had also recorded significant differences between existing estimates and the results of its household-level assessment.
The Minister said reliable 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.
He, however, stressed that any reduction in the estimated national figure would not reduce the urgency of the challenge.
“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 two years.
He said the next challenge was to sustain enrolment, keep children in school and prevent new cases of school exclusion.
The minister said the government was increasingly relying on digital education data to achieve these objectives, noting progress in the 2026 Annual School Census through the digitised Nigerian Education Management Information System (NEMIS).
According to him, 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 digital platform.
He described the participation of both public and private schools as a major step towards strengthening education planning and accountability.
He said the data would help the ministry identify gaps in access and participation, monitor enrolment, plan infrastructure and assess the impact of education interventions.