he Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, has said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has fulfilled almost 100 per cent of the promises he made during the 2023 presidential campaign, declaring that Nigeria is experiencing tangible changes under the administration.
Alausa made the assertion in Abuja at the weekend while receiving 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.
The Child Foresight team, led by its Director-General, Chris Ngwodo, and the Special Assistant on Special Duties to the Vice President, Mohammed Ahmed, presented the report to the minister.
Alausa said the foresight findings were 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.
He said the demographic profile presented both an opportunity and an urgent responsibility for government to ensure that young Nigerians are equipped with quality education, relevant skills and productive opportunities.
According to the minister, the changes under Tinubu were no longer matters of political rhetoric but were reflected in reforms and outcomes across sectors, particularly education.
“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.”
He added: “And these are not just rhetorics we are hearing now. These are things we are seeing, with a lot of tangible benefits and tangible change in the country.”
Alausa said Nigeria had moved beyond the uncertainty that previously characterised national development and was now focused on consolidating gains while addressing areas where the country still had substantial ground to cover.
“The country is not at a crossroads again. We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said.
The minister identified education as one of the key areas of the administration’s reform agenda, saying the Federal Ministry of Education had received strong support to implement reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
He said education remained central to the administration’s ambition of moving Nigeria towards a $1 trillion economy.
Alausa said the Nigerian Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI) was 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, as well as strengthening education data and digitalisation.
He said the renewed focus on TVET was changing perceptions about technical education and creating alternative pathways for young Nigerians to acquire practical skills, become entrepreneurs, secure employment and progress to higher levels of education.
“Skills are the present and the future,” he said, stressing that Nigeria could no longer afford an education system that failed to prepare young people for the demands of the modern economy.
The minister also linked investment in medical education and professional training to efforts to address the skills shortages contributing to migration pressures popularly described as “Japa.”
He said Nigeria had faced shortages of nurses and other health professionals despite having a large population of young people seeking opportunities to train in those fields.
According to him, government responded by expanding access to nursing education and increasing training capacity in existing teaching hospitals, federal medical centres and specialist hospitals.
He said the objective was to provide more Nigerians with access to quality professional training at home while developing a skilled workforce capable of competing internationally.
Alausa also highlighted the government’s increasing reliance on data in education planning, particularly in determining the actual number of out-of-school children.
He questioned long-standing estimates that put Nigeria’s out-of-school population at between 15 million and 17 million, arguing that the figures had often been cited without a sufficiently comprehensive household-level assessment.
He said emerging evidence from state-level household surveys suggested that previous estimates could have significantly overstated the number.
The minister cited Kaduna State, where he said a household survey covering more than 90 per cent of households produced a figure of 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 out-of-school children in the state, which he said fell to fewer than 100,000 following a general household survey.
Jigawa State, he added, had similarly recorded significant differences between existing estimates and the results of its household-level assessment.
Alausa stressed that better data would enable government to identify where children are out of school, determine the reasons for their exclusion, target interventions more accurately and monitor whether children who return to school remain in school.
“Even if there’s significant reduction, any child out of school is still too many,” he said.
He 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 enrolled more than 180,000 children in school over the past two years.
He said the next challenge was to sustain enrolment, keep children in school and prevent new cases of exclusion.
The minister said the government was increasingly using digital education data to achieve this, pointing to progress recorded 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.
“Without data, you’re flying blind.Data will tell you everything,” Alausa said.
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.
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 assessment would provide a clearer picture of learning outcomes and enable government to measure the effectiveness of interventions over time.
Alausa said the reforms and data being generated across the education sector were closely linked to the Child Foresight Analysis, arguing that the future of Nigerian children could not be secured through projections alone.
He said the foresight initiative would help embed long-term thinking, systems thinking, adaptive innovation and youth participation in national planning while protecting the interests of future generations.
The minister commended the Office of the Vice President, the Office for Strategic Preparedness and Resilience (OSPRE) and UNICEF for supporting the initiative.
He described the Child Foresight Analysis as an important tool for moving Nigeria from reactive governance towards anticipatory action.
Alausa said his ministry would work to align the findings with NESRI, particularly in future literacy, long-term education planning, skills development, data systems and intergenerational equity.
He urged stakeholders involved in the initiative to move beyond theoretical scenarios and connect their findings with reforms already underway in education and other sectors.
According to him, the ultimate measure of progress would be whether Nigerian children and young people receive better education, acquire relevant skills, find productive opportunities and contribute meaningfully to national development.
“Nigeria has changed, and it has changed for good,” the minister said.
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