The Kano State Ministry of Education on has officially flagged off the 2025/2026 Annual School Census (ASC), with the state’s leadership issuing a strong call to action after Kano lost its position as the country’s top-performing state in last year’s exercise.

The flag-off ceremony, held at the Conference Room of the Honourable Commissioner for Education, brought together Directors of the Ministry’s Departments and Agencies, Permanent Secretaries, the AGILE programme, School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) leadership, the Kano Accountability Forum on Education, and development partners including UNICEF, Plan International, and the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC).
Speaking at the event, the Commissioner for Education, Alhaji Haruna Makoda, formally declared the census open, describing accurate data as the foundation of effective planning. “If you don’t have data, it is like you are in a dilemma,” he told participants, recalling remarks from the Honourable Minister of Education during a recent unveiling of the Digitalised Nigeria Education Management Information System (DINEMIS) in Abuja.
The Commissioner noted that while Kano ranked first nationally in last year’s census, the state now trails behind Kaduna and other states currently rated “green” for early submission, with Kano marked “red.” He urged all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) spanning Pre-Primary, Primary, Junior and Senior Secondary, Science and Technical Schools, the Agency for Mass Education, and Private and Voluntary Institutions to intensify efforts and meet the Federal Ministry’s expectations.
The Permanent Secretary, Alhaji Bashir Baffa Mohammed, welcomed participants and commended the Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS) departments across agencies, as well as development partners, for their continued support toward the ASC.

The Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, Alhaji Yushau Hamza, explained that the census now digitalised will feed directly into the Federal Ministry of Education’s central server for real-time monitoring, with the DINEMIS framework launched just last week. A hard-copy backup of the exercise remains necessary alongside the digital process, he added.

dRPC reaffirms its commitment

  Speaking on behalf of dRPC’s Coordinator, the organisation’s representative reaffirmed its longstanding partnership with the Ministry, stating that dRPC remains ready to provide technical support to ensure the success of the exercise, building on years of successful collaboration on education data initiatives in the state.

Representatives of UNICEF and Plan International also pledged financial and technical support, with UNICEF describing plans to support data uploading, cleaning, analysis, and report writing once schools close for the term.

The Ministry has set an ambitious target to complete data collection before the end of the current school term, as Kano works to reclaim its leading position in national education data reporting.