Lagos moves to ban children from streets during school hours...

Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has announced plans to issue an executive order prohibiting school-age children from roaming the streets during school hours.

The southwest Nigerian state at the launch of the Lagos Education Access Fund (LEAF) and the inauguration of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB) in Lagos said the move was part of efforts to tackle out-of-school children.

Sanwo-Olu said the executive order would strengthen enforcement against truancy and increase accountability among parents, communities and institutions responsible for ensuring that every child of school age attends school regularly.

“No child should be seen outside between 8.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. unless there is a very good reason that the child is not in school,” the governor said.

Sanwo-Olu also announced a 25 million dollar outcomes-based education fund, aimed at improving learning outcomes rather than simply increasing enrolment numbers.

According to him, Lagos, in partnership with the Education Outcome Fund and development partners, will deploy the fund to support more than 200,000 children across the state.

CBI News understands that the programme will prioritise the enrolment of over 50,000 out-of-school children aged six to 14, using community outreach and targeted interventions to remove barriers preventing them from attending school.

Sanwo-Olu said the initiative would also support 150,000 pupils already in school, strengthening literacy and numeracy outcomes to ensure classroom attendance translates into real learning.

He said that the programme builds on Project Zero, launched in 2021 to tackle the out-of-school challenge, which has already returned more than 36,000 children to formal education across the state.

Aside returning children to school, the state said it has also supported over 360 parents and guardians with vocational training in skills such as fashion design, soap making, catering and hairdressing to improve household income and sustain children’s education.

Sanwo-Olu said his administration had also expanded education infrastructure significantly.

“We have built more schools and classrooms in the last seven years than were built in the previous 20 years,” he said.

In one school complex alone, the government is delivering 35 schools with capacity for nearly 20,000 students, he added.

The governor emphasised that meaningful progress in education requires collaboration between government, communities and development partners.

He thanked the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and the Education Outcome Fund for supporting the reform effort.

Earlier, Amel Karboul, Chief Executive Officer of the Education Outcome Fund, described Lagos as an example of bold leadership adopting an accountability-driven education financing model.

Karboul said governments often spend heavily on education inputs such as infrastructure and books but fail to secure real outcomes like improved learning or school retention.

“The most important infrastructure any nation can build is educated minds,” she said.

She added that LEAF could serve as a blueprint for other states and countries seeking to reform education financing by linking funding directly to measurable learning outcomes.

At the event, Sanwo-Olu inaugurated the LASUBEB board and appointed Hakeem Shittu as chairman.

Shittu pledged that the board would expand access to education, strengthen school governance and ensure that public education spending delivers measurable results across Lagos.