Federal Govt Allocates N10.1bn To Tackle Out-of-School Children, Boost School Safety

The federal government said it has channelled N10.1 billion into the education sector in the final quarter of 2025, to address out-of-school numbers in the country, strengthen school security, and deepen skills acquisition as part of its reform drive.

Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, who disclosed this, said the spending aligns with the administration’s six-point agenda aimed at reducing out-of-school children, expanding technical skills and building human capital for the labour market.

He noted that a major component of the intervention went into vocational and technical education. He revealed that N2.97 billion was paid as stipends to 160,000 vocational students, and N4.6 billion was invested in upgrading skills training centres under the Technical and Vocational Education and Training programme.

The government had also launched a N2.55 billion menstrual health campaign to deliver more than one million sanitary pads to 370,000 girls in rural and underserved communities, to tackle absenteeism linked to poor menstrual hygiene and improve girls’ retention in schools.

Speaking on the interventions, the Minister of Education said the financial support underscores the administration’s resolve to improve literacy and reposition the sector for national development.

He highlighted the six-point agenda under the Nigerian Education Sector Renewed Initiative, which he said is geared towards transitioning the country from a resource-driven to a knowledge-driven economy.

According to him, the strategic focus is to reduce the number of out-of-school children, tackle learning poverty and strengthen skills acquisition to boost human capital development for the labour market.

On security, the minister disclosed that the ministry is establishing a dedicated school safety department to reinforce school security architecture and infrastructure nationwide.

He added that security agencies are working around the clock to safeguard learning environments and that the government is recording progress in the ongoing operations against insurgents.

He explained that the ministry is collaborating with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps through a real-time tracking system for school safety.

The newly unveiled platform, he said, has registered 15,000 schools and received data on 141,000 geolocated schools from the ministry’s digital monitoring platform.