Borno Records Highest-Ever School Enrolment as Education Reforms Take Hold

Borno State has posted its highest school enrolment figures on record, with the newly released 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 Annual School Census (ASC) Report putting the number of learners across the state at 1,801,295.

The Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Lawan Abba Wakilbe, unveiled the report on Friday at the Ministry of Education Work Hub of the Musa Usman Secretariat complex in Maiduguri, describing the jump as proof that the state's long push to rebuild its education system is paying off.

Enrolment has grown from 766,551 learners in 2017/2018 to 1,801,295 in the latest census, an increase of more than one million pupils over nine years.

Wakilbe attributed the rise to renewed public confidence in schools and sustained state investment in the sector.

"When you look at where we started, 766,551 learners in 2017/2018, and see where we are today, this is not just a number; it is evidence that parents and communities once again trust our schools with their children's future," he said.

The Commissioner credited Governor Babagana Umara Zulum for his sustained commitment to education, and Minister of Education Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa for driving the national education data agenda, including the Digital National Education Management Information System (DNEMIS).

He also thanked the enumerators, head teachers, Local Government Education Authorities and EMIS staff who carried out the census.

Alongside enrolment growth, the state's teaching workforce across primary, junior secondary and senior secondary levels rose from 15,563 in 2024/2025 to 17,565 in 2025/2026.

At the senior secondary level alone, teacher numbers grew from 2,314 to 2,998 and are projected to reach 3,998 by 2027, following the recruitment of 1,000 additional senior secondary teachers in August 2026.

Including facilitators supporting Sangaya and mass literacy programmes, the state's combined teaching workforce now stands at an estimated 19,316.

"We cannot talk about access without talking about the people who stand in front of the classroom every day. That is why, alongside rising enrolment, we have deliberately grown our teaching workforce because more pupils must mean more qualified teachers, not more overcrowded classrooms," Wakilbe explained.

The census also showed that the number of functional public secondary schools rose from 34 in 2021 to 129 in 2026, with the state achieving 100 per cent reporting coverage across pre-primary/primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, and science and technical schools in this cycle.

Wakilbe added that the establishment of the Arabic and Sangaya Education Board, the development of High Islamic Colleges, and the ongoing registration and verification of Sangaya centres, enumerators, facilitators and Islamiyya schools reflect the state's broader push to integrate Sangaya education into the wider school system formally.

According to the report, the Digital National Education Management Information System currently records 127,652 verified Sangaya learners, though an ongoing verification exercise by the Sangaya Board has identified 498,295 learners across 5,335 centres.

The Sangaya Board and the State Agency for Mass Literacy deploy 1,751 facilitators to support these learning centres.