The First Time a Classroom Disappears

School is on holiday, but the crisis I found does not take breaks. In Kano, Plateau,Abia, Imo and Lagos, the streets were full of children whose desks were already empty long before school closed. Many dropped out long ago. Others never enrolled.  And most may never return. From markets to bus parks, these children hustle and survive disappearing from the education system’s radar.

This is not a holiday. Not for the children selling sachet water under the sun. Not for the boy folding nylon bags in Umuahia, Abia state. Not for the girls in Plateau now cooking and cleaning while waiting for marriage proposals. And not for the parents across Kano and Imo asking hard questions: Is school still worth the sacrifice? The desks may be empty for the term break, but many will remain that way when school resumes. Not because these children lost interest but because the system lost its grip on them. In some communities, entire families now live without a single school-going child a silent collapse of generational momentum. Their stories are not new. But their normalisation is.

When 13-year-old Ugua Moses stopped going to school in Plateau State, it wasn’t because he failed a class. He lost his father in a local mining collapse , one of the many informal, dangerous pits where desperate families seek income. His mother, partially blind and recently separated, now depends on him to survive. Every market day, he pushes a wheelbarrow to earn just enough to feed himself, his mother and three siblings  all out of school too.

A Country Where Learning Is Optional, Survival Is Not

According to the UNICEF Nigeria Education Dashboard (2025), over 18 million Nigerian children are out of school — the highest figure in Sub-Saharan Africa. In regions like Borno, Zamfara, and Plateau, enrolment has dropped by more than half. Yet the most devastating part of this crisis isn’t just statistical, it is  emotional. It is  the silent belief among families that education is no longer a path to survival or success.

‘Families aren’t choosing luxury over school,’ says Kyenpiya Jessica Nyabam, founder of CLAPAI Orphanage in Plateau State. ‘They’re choosing between education and eating. We see families who want their children to learn but can’t afford basic necessities, let alone school fees, uniforms, or transportation. She added.

Nyabam, a child protection advocate with over 18 years of experience, leads an orphanage that now shelters and educates more than 1,000 children, many of them displaced, abused, or abandoned. She sees the patterns daily.

‘We have seen children vanish from classrooms overnight. Sometimes after a parent dies, sometimes after they’re pulled into trading or early marriage. For many girls, school ends so that a brother can continue, or because a man has come to ‘marry her out.’

When Teachers Stop Showing Up

‘Yahoo is the new classroom.’

 — Teacher, Ayobo, Lagos.

In the Ayobo , Lagos, a local teacher told me bluntly:

‘Young boys are dropping out fast because yahoo is the new classroom.’ And even those who try to remain in school are increasingly let down.

In Plateau, I spoke with Jonathan Musa, a 14-year-old boy from a middle-class family who dropped out in JSS2. His parents could afford school but lacked the structure or discipline to enforce it. Now, Jonathan spends his days illegally mining with older men, and his nights buying street food, browsing stolen phones, or wandering with friends.

Although his parents are considered middle class, Jonathan Moses’ story reveals just how thin that label has become. With no one at home enforcing discipline and no teachers showing up at school despite being on payroll, education slowly slipped out of his reach. ‘I want to go back,’ he murmured in Hausa, eyes lowered as he traced small circles in the dust with his toe. ‘But the teachers don’t come. They get paid, but nobody teaches us. I’m even scared to try again… I still don’t know how to say my ABC.

‘Why Should I Send My Child to School?’

At Hyde Memorial Secondary School, Principal Mr. Ishaya Bawa voiced a more complex frustration.

‘Children don’t see the point anymore because they lack proper support from parents. And parents ask, ‘Why send them to school when our graduates stay jobless for years?’

Poverty plays a role, he said, but so does the lack of awareness about the value of education. ‘The few who manage to attend school often return home jobless. So many parents now wonder, ‘What’s the essence?’ Even if a child studies well, they still end up joining those who didn’t go at all. That’s why some parents stop backing their children or even providing the basics needed to stay in school.’ He also believes the dropout crisis is fuelled not just by poverty, but by structural failures, ‘unemployment after graduation, nepotism, and regional bias in school admissions and job placements.”

‘If you’re from a marginalised tribe or region, you’re rarely considered. No matter how qualified you are, you’re often neglected.’ Disillusioned, some children say, ‘Even if I go to school, who will employ me? I don’t know anyone at the top.’ So, they turn to mining.

He also raised concerns about parental neglect and substance abuse among teenage boys. ‘Some leave school and disappear into bad gangs or drugs,’ he said.

A Crisis Felt Differently by Girls

For boys, school can be postponed. For many girls, it’s permanently abandoned.

In Riyom, Plateau State, a mother told me: ‘It’s not that we don’t want our girls in school. But if a man comes for her, and we can’t afford her books, what choice do we really have?’

Nyabam echoed this reality: ‘Girls are pulled out to care for siblings or help in the market. Some are married off to ease the financial burden. I know a girl who dropped out despite being one of the best in her class just because her family needed her to become someone else’s responsibility.’

‘When Things Get Better, I’ll Go Back’

This phrase whispered again and again by the children I spoke to carries both the weight of hope and despair.

Chukwuma, a boy selling tomatoes at Isi Gate Market Umuahia, Abia state said he was saving money to return to school in September.

‘If I don’t make enough, that means I won’t go back to school,’ he said.

‘We hear this all the time,’ says Nyabam.  ‘When things get better’ means when food returns to the house, when school fees are paid, or when the child is no longer the breadwinner.’ 

Makeshift Classrooms, Forgotten Futures

‘We must build schools that don’t just teach but awaken. Environments where children are seen, heard, and prepared for purpose not just performance.’

— Bar. Janet Ikyegh  Adeboye, Director, Springblooms Academy Kano, Educational Consultant and Child Advocate.

In many conflict zones and rural villages, formal schooling has disappeared altogether. Children are taught in church halls, under trees, or not at all. Even when community-run centres exist, they are unregulated and underfunded.

‘They’re helpful,’ says Nyabam, who runs two of such community schools. ‘Local hubs are helpful, but they are indeed a stopgap in many cases. They provide immediate access to learning for displaced or marginalised children but often lack structure, accreditation, and long-term sustainability. Nonetheless, they serve a vital role where formal systems have failed. CLAPAI runs two free community schools and has seen firsthand how even small efforts can make a difference. But they’re a stopgap, not a solution. Without government support, they won’t last.’

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Child Rights Act (2003) guarantees free, compulsory basic education and prohibits child labour. But in reality, enforcement is weak especially in markets, Internally Displaced Person camps, and remote areas where oversight is absent.

Some educators are rethinking what school should even mean. One of them is Bar. Janet Ikyegh  Adeboye, Director of  Springblooms Academy in Kano.

‘As a school owner and advocate, I see daily how complex the out-of-school crisis has become. Beyond poverty, parents are quietly losing faith in the system. My husband recently threatened to withdraw our first child if I couldn’t find a school that builds skills and creativity, not just grades.’

She believes the old promise ’get good grades, get a good job’ no longer holds. Even educated graduates now struggle with direction and employment.

At Springblooms, education is being reshaped for relevance – grounded in creativity, character, and real-life skills. Fee flexibility ensures no child is left behind, and parents are partners in learning. Teachers are trained to mentor potential, not just prep for exams. ‘We must build schools that don’t just teach, but awaken spaces where children are seen, heard, and prepared for purpose, not just performance,’ she said.

Imo’s Clampdown on Schools

As the public demands better schools, some officials are responding with visible but controversial action. In Imo State, during the launch of a free Adult Literacy Programme in Umuagwo, Education Commissioner Prof. B.T.O. Ikegwuoha announced the closure of over 200 private schools and the demotion of 80 principals for poor performance.

‘If I find any principal not in school between 7:30 and 7:45 a.m., I will demote them,’ he said. “They’ll remain there, humiliated by a junior replacing them.’

He plans to introduce mandatory exams for school heads, with removal for anyone scoring below 80%. Harsh as it sounds, his urgency mirrors the crisis—fuelled by teacher absenteeism, poor outcomes, and public distrust.

Yet, enforcing discipline without real investment in teacher training, funding, or infrastructure may spark fear, not reform. Nigeria’s education response remains stuck in a cycle of punitive gestures trying to discipline its way out of systemic failure.

Before I wrote this story as a journalist, I lived part of it as a parent.

When we relocated to a northern town, we searched for a nursery school for our four-year-old daughter and found none we could trust. Many had unqualified teachers, torn infrastructure, and no visible sense of learning. Children wandered during school hours. Teachers chatted idly nearby. Some were not even trained. Public or private, it did not matter. The only difference is one cost more, the other offered less. Neither was safe enough for a child’s future.

The deeper you move into communities in Nigeria, the more it feels  like education is bleeding out quietly. Yes, the educational bloodstream is slowly draining, and no one notices the haemorrhage.

Now, when I tried to reach a top official in a states Ministry of Education to ask about these issues. She asked me to go through a long bureaucratic process even when I explained I was writing on a pressing national crisis. That response, or lack of one, mirrors the systemic indifference plaguing education governance across Nigeria.

What Must Change

Nigeria’s education crisis will not be solved by orphanage directors, unpaid teachers, or overburdened NGOs alone. The federal and state governments must realise this is no longer a seasonal setback, it is a generational emergency that requires structural action.

We need more than policies on paper. We need political will, transparent financing, and real-time accountability that holds ministries, administrators, and even lawmakers to measurable standards. This means:

• Prioritising public education in national and state budgets not as charity, but as critical infrastructure.
• Overhauling teacher recruitment, pay, and training, including incentives and continuous development
• Building local inspection and monitoring systems to ensure quality in under – served and rural schools
• Creating an education accountability framework that includes parents, civil society, and communities
• Eliminating nepotism and regional bias from school admissions and public appointments
• Protecting children from early marriage, child labour, and informal exploitation
• Funding and formalising  NGO-school partnerships, so grassroots efforts can scale with structure

This is not a task for NGOs alone. It is the constitutional duty of the Nigerian state. Until education becomes non-negotiable backed by law, funded in budgets, and protected in practice, Nigeria will continue bleeding futures in silence.

Conclusion: A System in Collapse

‘The teachers don’t come.’  

‘I want to go back, but the teachers don’t come.’

 — Jonathan Musa, age 14, school dropout.

That line echoed across Nigeria. I saw notebooks with just one line of text. I met children who did not drop out because they failed, they dropped out because the system failed them.

In desperation, many parents turned to private schools, fleeing neglected public classrooms. But economic hardship has made even those fees unaffordable. Some children have been withdrawn from private schools, with school fees owed in the millions. One school even cancelled graduation ceremonies not out of spite, but because it is drowning in debt.

This is not just a human crisis; it is a business crisis. How do schools survive when families cannot pay fees? How do teachers stay motivated when salaries are delayed, the cost of living is high, enrolment is falling, and basic facilities are crumbling? It is like fleeing a burning house only to find the next shelter also on fire. The walls are different, but the danger is the same.

This is more than poverty. It is a failure of leadership, accountability, and vision.

Teachers are underpaid and demoralised. Schools are underfunded. Policies exist only on paper. That is why the education system is not just leaking — it is collapsing.

According to UNICEF Nigeria Education Dashboard (2025), over 18.2 million Nigerian children are now out of school. In some states, enrolment has dropped by more than 50%.

This is not just a statistic. It is a national warning sign. If we continue this way, what kind of future are we preparing for, and for whom?

Nigeria must declare a state of emergency on education. Not in white papers. Not in conference rooms. But on the ground, where the children are.

We owe these children more than survival. We owe them a future built on learning.

In the words of Malala Yousafzai:
’One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world’