By Chika Nwachukwu
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa said the administration of President Bola Tinubu remains committed to the development of non-formal education as part of efforts aimed at job creation and youth empowerment across the country.
Alausa spoke during a special plenary session moderated by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, at the ongoing Education World Forum in London, United Kingdom.
A statement by the minister’s Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah, disclosed that the session discussed the importance of non-formal education and soft skills, and gave the three participating education ministers an opportunity to explain how industry can be involved to support individual wellbeing and basic employability.
According to the minister, the President Tinubu-led federal government through the education ministry is relentless in its push to empower out-of-school children through informal education, while also equipping those in formal education with entrepreneurial skills, which is part of non-formal education.
“What we are doing in Nigeria is because we have a lot of out-of-school children. We have to find a way that we can quickly get them a kind of non-formal education.
“We have created a separate curriculum for them called accelerated basic education programme which ties them to what they should be learning in school,” he said.
Alausa explained Nigeria’s wide array of informal educational programmes targeting out-of-school youths, adults, and vulnerable populations.
These initiatives, he said, are designed to bridge literacy gaps, provide vocational and technical skills, and integrate less privileged or marginalized groups into the economy.
“We have heavily focused on technical vocational education, which is still a form of formal education, but in a non-formal setting to give people that have gone to school other skill sets that they can use to benefit themselves and their community.
“Most of our youths are in schools and we as a government have to find a way to give them other forms of non-formal education while they are within the formal setting,” he said.
Among the programmes highlighted by the minister is the TVET initiative, a flagship programme by the Federal Ministry of Education offering tuition-free vocational training, stipends and start-up support to close skills gaps and boost entrepreneurship.
He also cited the national policy on skills development which promotes flexible learning pathways by integrating hands-on training, digital literacy and vocational skills for out-of-school youths and adults.
Others include programmes for mass literacy, adult and non-formal education, which coordinate nationwide functional literacy, post-literacy and continuing education programmes.
He also touched on the Almajiri and out-of-school children education, NCAOOSCE, which focuses on integrating the traditional Quranic system with basic and vocational skills training.
“We have also infused what we call entrepreneurial training into these kids. Whatever level of courses they are studying, they go through our entrepreneurship, innovation business certification to equip them with the skills they need to be able to function and do things differently.
“We are also looking at the area of digital technology to train and equip them with digital skills,” he said.
The minister concluded his presentation by saying that “the whole goal of what we are doing here is to really get them the skills. Skills for the present and skills for the future. We are also looking at the other special abilities that our youths have.”
The other panelists were the Ministers of Education from Ontario, Canada, Paul Calandra, Secretary of State for Education, Rio Grande de Sul, Brazil, Raquel Teixeira, and International Youth Representative, DofE International Award Foundation, Andrea Chakma.
Alausa lauded the Duke of Edinburgh for visiting Nigeria in November 2025, while noting that Nigeria is part of the Duke of Edinburgh International Award Foundation.
