By Luminous Jannamike

ABUJA – Nigeria’s growing out-of-school children crisis cannot be tackled by government or any single organisation alone, key players in the banking, philanthropy, government, corporate and civil society sectors have warned.

They called for stronger collaboration to prevent the challenge from further undermining the country’s development.

The consensus emerged as senior leaders from across the public and private sectors gathered to confront one of Nigeria’s most urgent education challenges: getting millions of children back into the classroom.

They agreed that fragmented interventions have yielded limited results and that only sustained partnerships can deliver lasting change.

Setting the tone for the discussions, the Executive Director of the Ibironke Adeagbo Foundation (IA-Foundation), Mrs Olufunke Sotinwa, said collaboration, rather than competition, must shape efforts to address the crisis.

“No single institution can solve this crisis alone. We see ourselves as the credible bridge this ecosystem has been missing; between government and community, between ambition and accountability,” Sotinwa said.

The appeal came at IA-Foundation’s 4th Education Summit 2026, held in Lagos, where about 25 senior delegates gathered to examine practical ways of expanding access to quality education across the country.

A major focus of the summit was the Foundation’s newly launched white paper, ‘The Danger of the Knowledge Gap,’ which examines the scale of Nigeria’s out-of-school children crisis, estimated in some quarters at about 28 million children, and warns of the consequences for the country’s economy, security and democratic future.

Speaking virtually, the Foundation’s founder, Ibironke Adeagbo, said tackling the country’s out-of-school children crisis should be seen as an ‘enlightened self-interest’ for every Nigerian.

She stressed that meaningful progress would only come through deliberate collaboration among government agencies, development partners, private sector organisations and civil society groups.

According to Adeagbo, “efforts to reduce the number of out-of-school children are an enlightened self-interest” for all Nigerians.

Delivering the keynote address, legal luminary and IA-Foundation Patron, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), urged citizens and advocacy groups to make use of the Freedom of Information Act to demand greater transparency and accountability in education funding, policy implementation and the management of education data.

“Advocacy is not optional,” Falana said.

He said greater public scrutiny of education spending and policy outcomes is essential to reversing the country’s education crisis.

Representatives of SOS Children’s Villages, the Aliko Dangote Foundation, ACT Foundation and Wellington College Lagos were among participants at the summit.

The stakeholders called for a coordinated, data-driven and community-centred response to the education challenge, arguing that isolated interventions have failed to match the scale of the crisis.

Sotinwa said the summit marked the start of a year-long engagement process aimed at turning the discussions into funded initiatives designed to deliver measurable improvements in communities across Nigeria.