Gombe State has launched a comprehensive initiative to address the alarming rate of out-of-school children, with a staggering 787,619 children currently not in school, according to UNICEF and World Bank data.

The State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and UNICEF, convened a one-day stakeholders engagement meeting to flag off the 2025 Enrolment Drive Campaign yesterday in Gombe.

The initiative aims to confront the growing education gap through data-driven strategies, inclusive policy frameworks, and robust community engagement. Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya proposed increasing the target to 20,000 pupils per local government, bringing the new total to 220,000 pupils.

The state has harmonized data on out-of-school children, classified by age, gender, and disability, and has adopted the Retention, Transition, and Completion (RTC) model. The state has equally introduced vocational and accelerated programs for older learners, including Almajiri students, and has domesticated the Almajiri and Out-of-School Children Bill.

Each LGA now hosts one model Tsangaya school and three bilingual schools, each capable of accommodating up to 1,000 students. The initiative aims to reduce the number of out-of-school children by 50 per cent by 2030.