The Plateau State Government has sounded the alarm on a growing education crisis, revealing that nearly a quarter of its school-age children specifically 23.2 percent are currently missing out on formal education.

To reverse this alarming trend, the state is rolling out aggressive, community-backed advocacy campaigns while warning that it is prepared to introduce strict legal penalties to force parents to enroll their children. This pressing issue was highlighted during a grassroots campaign centered around School-Based Management Committees, which was organized by the Plateau State Universal Basic Education Board in Jos to bridge the gap between local families and government institutions.

The rising number of out-of-school children in the state is driven by several overlapping social and economic challenges.

Widespread regional insecurity has uprooted families and cut off access to local classrooms, forcing many children to flee their homes and abandon their education. Furthermore, economic pressures push young children into hazardous activities such as illegal mining and street hawking, while young girls are frequently pulled from school due to early marriages or being sent away to work as domestic helpers.

This combination of factors has severely damaged Plateau State’s historical academic standing. Once celebrated as the leading educational hub of Northern Nigeria, the state had slipped significantly to rank 33rd out of Nigeria’s 36 states by the time the current administration took office. While there has been a slight upward trend under Governor Caleb Mutfwang’s administration, officials acknowledge that a long road lies ahead to restore the state’s academic reputation.

To address these deep-rooted issues, the Ministry of Education is actively developing stringent new regulations. These upcoming policies, designed in partnership with traditional rulers, development organizations, and religious figures, aim to legally compel parents and guardians to send their children back to school.

At the same time, education leaders are pushing for greater localized accountability, warning that children left out of the school system are highly vulnerable to falling into crime and social vices.

To combat this, the state is urging local communities to establish their own sanctions and prosecute individuals who exploit school-age children for labor. To support this grassroots defense, the state government and the Universal Basic Education Commission have allocated funding under their Annual Basic Education Action Plan to train and empower local committee members to identify dropouts and ensure they are safely returned to the classroom.