Until recently, Musa (surname concealed) spent most of his days on the street, playing around his community without a school uniform, a classroom or a clear path forward.
Everything changed when he noticed a team canvassing his neighbourhood to find out-of-school children.
Drawn to their mission, Musa approached the team himself and insisted on learning.
His determination paid off.
Mr Ezra Angai, Project Coordinator and Project Management Unit Lead of the Reaching Out of School Children (ROOSC) Project, spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria.
He said Musa’s insistence earned him a spot in the programme.
‘Because Musa was already past the standard age for primary school, he was enrolled in the Accelerated Basic Education Programme (ABEP), which helps older children quickly build foundational literacy, numeracy and basic life skills.’
Today, Musa attends classes regularly.
More significantly, he now has a dream.
For Angai, Musa’s ambition captures what can happen when a child who has been excluded from education is given another opportunity.
‘He tells you he wants to become a medical doctor.
‘Before, he was just on the street. Now, there is direction for his future and where he is going.’
Musa is not alone.
Across Kaduna, children who had never entered a classroom or had dropped out are gradually finding their way back into learning through different pathways provided under the ROOSC project.
Some are children who once worked on farms or in markets, while others live in communities where schools are distant or overcrowded.
Some are in Tsangaya centres, while others have been affected by poverty, migration, insecurity or family circumstances.
Angai recalled meeting children at learning centres who initially could not identify a single letter.
Months later, he found them identifying letters and numbers, introducing themselves in English, solving basic mathematics and reading passages.
Angai was amazed and upbeat.
‘A year ago, these children were from the streets and could not even identify a letter. Now, they can read a whole passage.’
For the children, the transformation is not simply academic.
It is the difference between spending their days without structured learning and beginning to imagine what their lives could become.
The latest Kaduna State Out-of-School Children Mapping Report provides the scale behind these individual stories.
The 2025/2026 mapping identified 187,719 children aged six to 17 who were out of school across the state’s 23 Local Government Areas.
It covered 360,319 households and found that 106,353 of the affected children were boys, while 81,366 were girls.
No fewer than 60.2 per cent had never enrolled in school, while 39.8 per cent had dropped out.
But behind the statistics are families struggling to survive.
According to the mapping, household economic constraints accounted for 58.5 per cent of exclusion.
Angai said poverty was the biggest reason children remained outside the education system.
‘When families are unable to properly fend for themselves, some resort to sending these children to work or sending them to farms.’
The situation has also challenged assumptions about which children are most affected.
Angai said the mapping found more boys than girls among out-of-school children.
He attributed this partly to the economic roles boys are expected to play in some families.
‘The boys simply have to go to farms, go to sell and so on in order to help families meet their needs.’
In some communities, however, the story is different.
For girls, early marriage and gender expectations can interrupt education.
Angai recalled the case of a girl who suddenly stopped attending one of the learning centres.
A case worker noticed that she had missed school for four consecutive days.
The matter was traced to her father, who had taken her to another community because he wanted her to be married.
Rather than allowing the girl to disappear from the programme, community members intervened.
The case worker contacted the community coalition, which engaged the traditional ruler and subsequently spoke with the father.
The girl was eventually allowed to return to learning.
For Angai, the case illustrates why returning children to school requires more than providing classrooms.
‘It is a very sensitive area.’
He said the project had therefore made community advocacy central to its intervention.
Traditional rulers, religious leaders, women leaders, youth representatives and other influential community members have been mobilised to encourage families to send their children to school.
Community coalitions have conducted house-to-house visits, market campaigns and street sensitisation exercises.
The project has also used radio programmes, posters and banners in local communities.
Angai said engagement with traditional and religious leaders had helped communities understand the importance of education.
He recalled the project’s engagement with the Emir of Zazzau, who allowed the team to present its education intervention to the emirate council.
For some parents, he said, the challenge was not necessarily opposition to education but a lack of information about its benefits.
‘When you engage with the parents, they are happy for their children to go to school.’
The project has also had to find different ways of reaching children who cannot immediately fit into the conventional school system.
For younger children, Catch Up Clubs provide intensive learning before transition into formal schools.
For older children, ABEP provides an accelerated pathway to acquire basic education.
In Tsangaya communities, literacy and numeracy are integrated alongside Qur’anic learning.
Angai said 25 Tsangaya centres had signed memoranda of understanding to participate in the programme.
The project also uses radio learning to reach children in communities where insecurity or distance makes conventional attendance difficult.
Such flexibility is important because Kaduna’s out-of-school children are not concentrated in one type of community.
The mapping recorded the highest numbers in Kubau, Giwa, Makarfi, Soba and Igabi.
In farming communities, children may be needed on farms.
In other areas, teacher shortages, inadequate classrooms, distance to schools or limited post-primary opportunities contribute to exclusion.
The project has therefore adopted what Angai described as a holistic response.
He said the Kaduna State Government secured an investment of 62.8 million dollars for the ROOSC intervention, with a target of returning 100,000 out-of-school children to learning within four years.
Angai said the project exceeded its first-year target of 10,000 children by enrolling 15,000.
No fewer than 20,000 children are also participating in Catch Up Clubs as the project works towards its second-year target.
But getting children through the school gate is only half the battle.
The next challenge is keeping them there.
Angai said ROOSC provided learning kits and uniforms to reduce the hidden costs that often keep poor children away from school.
The project is also supporting the construction of 102 new schools and renovation of 170 existing facilities, according to the coordinator.
He said the aim was to create learning environments where children feel safe, comfortable and motivated to attend.
Teachers are also receiving professional development to improve learning outcomes.
Attendance is monitored, while case workers follow up when children repeatedly miss classes.
This system is particularly important for children vulnerable to child labour, early marriage, neglect or other pressures.
For Musa, however, the biggest change may be something that cannot easily be captured in an attendance register.
He now has a picture of the future.
A boy who once spent his days on the streets now talks about becoming a doctor.
Other children who once struggled to identify letters can now read stories and perform basic calculations.
Their journeys remain unfinished.
The mapping identified 187,719 out-of-school children, while ROOSC is targeting 100,000 for enrolment during its four-year implementation period.
Angai acknowledged that reaching every child remains a major challenge.
Some children move with their families.
Others migrate between states, particularly children in Tsangaya settings.
Some depend on daily earnings, while insecurity continues to make access difficult in certain communities.
‘These children are not stable,’ Angai said, describing migration as one of the challenges facing the programme.
Yet the project is attempting to ensure that movement, poverty or location does not permanently determine a child’s educational future.
The Kaduna State Ministry of Education has also committed to using the latest mapping data to guide education planning and interventions.
The Commissioner for Education, Prof. Abubakar Sani Sambo, described the mapping as an important evidence base for identifying who the children are, where they live and why they remain outside school.
The ministry has said the findings would be integrated into the Kaduna Education Sector Plan and annual operational planning.
Angai said the ultimate goal extends beyond the four-year project.
The monitoring systems developed under ROOSC will transition to the Ministry of Education to ensure children do not just enrol, but stay in school, learn and graduate.
For vulnerable children like Musa, who went from working on the street to dreaming of becoming a doctor, entering a classroom is just the first step in overcoming a lifetime of barriers.
Stakeholders say every child who returns to school represents a vital second chance; Kaduna’s current challenge is to transform these second chances into permanent opportunities.