Former Minister of Aviation and aerospace development advocate, Osita Chidoka, has raised concern over the sharp decline in school enrolment between primary and junior secondary education in Nigeria, describing the trend as a major national challenge requiring urgent policy attention.
Chidoka spoke after attending the National Stakeholders Meeting on the National Education Data Infrastructure led by the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, where education data from across the country was presented through the Nigeria Education Management Information System (NEMIS).
According to him, one of the most alarming revelations from the data was the large gap between the number of pupils enrolled in primary schools and those who eventually transition into junior secondary schools.
“The first was the gap between primary school enrolment and junior secondary enrolment. The drop is so wide that I found myself asking the obvious question: what happened to those children?” Chidoka said.
“Where did they go between Primary Six and JSS One? A generation appears to thin out between those two rungs, and we owe ourselves an honest answer.”
He warned that delays in education reforms could permanently affect millions of Nigerian children, stressing that unlike roads or airports that can be completed later, lost years of education are often impossible to recover.
“Every year, one of Nigeria’s roughly 15 million out-of-school children loses a narrow window that may never reopen. When reforms eventually come, they benefit a different cohort, not the child already left behind,” he stated.
Chidoka described the Federal Government’s National Education Data Infrastructure as one of the country’s most important recent projects, saying credible, real-time data would improve decision-making in the education sector.
He praised the Nigeria Education Management Information System, developed by Ernst & Young, for providing detailed information on enrolment figures, school infrastructure and student-teacher ratios across all states.
The former minister also pointed to another concern revealed by the data the growing number of repeat candidates in the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) system.
According to him, the figures exposed a serious admission bottleneck in Nigeria’s tertiary education sector, with many qualified candidates repeatedly seeking university admission without success.
“Too many qualified young Nigerians are queuing behind the same narrow gate, year after year,” he said.
Chidoka further disclosed that the Nigeria Research and Education Network (NgREN) would support the initiative by providing connectivity and digital services to tertiary institutions this year and extending similar infrastructure to secondary schools by 2027.
He added that the growing use of evidence-based data in education governance could serve as a model for other sectors of government.
“What is happening in education may not yet dominate the headlines, but something important is taking shape quietly beneath the surface. Evidence is beginning to replace assertion. Data is starting to shape decisions,” he said.