HISTORY
A century and more of schooling in Kano
From the Qur'anic schools that predate every other institution in the city, through the Native Authority schools of the early 1900s and Rumfa College in 1921, to a system that now enrols 3.4 million learners.
Where it begins
Formal education in Kano did not begin with government. It began in the Tsangaya — the Qur'anic schools that have taught reading, memorisation and Arabic script in this city for centuries, and which still enrol hundreds of thousands of learners today. Any account of schooling in Kano that starts in 1909 has started in the middle of the story.
What the twentieth century added was a second system alongside the first: government schools, then Native Authority schools, then a State ministry, then boards, and eventually a legal duty on every parent to keep a child in school for nine years. The work of the last two decades has been to stop treating those two systems as rivals. Integration, not replacement, is the policy: the Tsangaya keeps its curriculum and its Mallam, and adds literacy, numeracy, a trade, feeding and health screening.
The sector in dates
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Before 1900
The Tsangaya system
Qur'anic schools under a Mallam are the established form of education in the Kano emirate, drawing pupils from across the region. The scholarly tradition of Kano city is already several centuries old when the first government school opens.
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1909
The first government school
A colonial administration opens the Nassarawa school in Kano, teaching sons of the aristocracy. Enrolment is measured in dozens, and the school is viewed with deep suspicion by most of the city.
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1921
Rumfa College
The Kano Provincial School, later Rumfa College, is founded. It becomes the training ground for the administrative class of Northern Nigeria and remains one of the best-known schools in the country. It still appears in the State register today.
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1930s – 1940s
Native Authority schools spread
Elementary schools are opened under the Native Authority across the emirate districts, with a middle school in each division. Mission schools open in Sabon Gari, serving the settled non-indigenous population.
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1956
Regional education law
The Northern Region education legislation puts Native Authority schools, mission schools and government schools under one inspectorate for the first time, with a common standard of approval.
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1967
Kano State is created
Kano State comes into being on 27 May 1967, and a State Ministry of Education is established to take over the schools of the former Native Authorities and the region.
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1970
Kano State Library Board
The Library Board is established and the Central Library at Kofar Nassarawa opens, the first of what is now a network of 30 service points across the State.
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1976
Universal Primary Education
The national UPE scheme abolishes primary school fees. Enrolment in Kano multiplies within three years, classrooms are built at speed, and the shortage of trained teachers that follows shapes policy for the next two decades.
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1978
Science and Technical Schools Board
A separate board is created for the science secondary schools and technical colleges, in recognition that laboratories, workshops and trade instructors cannot be run on the same model as an ordinary secondary school.
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1981
The 6-3-3-4 structure
The National Policy on Education introduces six years of primary, three of junior secondary, three of senior secondary and four of tertiary study, with pre-vocational subjects in the junior years. Kano rebuilds its schools around the new shape.
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1992
Agency for Mass Education
The Agency is established to run adult and non-formal education: basic literacy, post-literacy and vocational classes for adults and for young people who left school early.
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1999
The return to civil rule
A civilian administration restates free education in the State, abolishes fees in public secondary schools and begins the recovery of school infrastructure after years of underinvestment.
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2001
Qur'anic and Islamiyyah School Management Board
For the first time the Tsangaya and Islamiyyah schools are given a board of their own, with a register, a support budget and a route to certification, rather than being left outside the system.
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2004
The Universal Basic Education Act
Nine years of basic education become free and compulsory in law. A duty falls on parents to enrol their children, and a federal matching-grant window opens which the State must draw down with its own counterpart funds.
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2005
SUBEB and the 44 education authorities
The State Universal Basic Education Board is created, with a local government education authority in every one of the 44 local government areas, and capitation grants begin to flow directly to schools.
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2009
Private and Voluntary Institute
The growth of fee-paying, community and mission schools is brought under a single approving authority, with twelve statutory criteria, a fixed term of approval and a published register.
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2013
Senior secondary schools get their own board
KSSMB is established and the management of senior secondary schools passes to it, separating the demands of SS 1 to SS 3 — placement, streams, boarding, external examinations — from basic education.
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2016
The girl-child initiative
A concerted push on girls' enrolment begins: female teacher recruitment, separate sanitation, conditional cash transfers and a back-to-school drive at the transition point. The gender parity index moves from 0.68 towards 0.90.
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2019
State of emergency on education
The State declares a state of emergency on education, creates the Education Development Trust Fund out of one per cent of the State's consolidated fund, and establishes the Education Development Support Board to administer it and the capital programme.
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2021
Partner-financed expansion
The World Bank AGILE programme begins, financing secondary school construction and scholarships for girls, alongside a STEM and digital learning programme that puts ICT centres into 420 schools.
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2025
One system, one record
The Ministry consolidates census, register, enrolment, staffing, examinations and certification onto a single platform, so that a school, a teacher, a learner and a certificate each have one authoritative record shared by the Ministry and all eight boards.
Rumfa College and what a school can become
Founded in 1921 as the Kano Provincial School, Rumfa College has outlasted the administration that built it, the region it served and three constitutions. Its alumni have led governments, ministries and universities. It is a useful reminder that the decisions taken in a ministry are measured in generations rather than in budget years.
The same is true in the other direction. The classroom block that is not built, the laboratory that has no equipment, the teacher who is posted and never arrives — these also compound. That is why the Ministry publishes project completion, census returns and budget performance: so that what was promised in one year can be checked against what exists in the next.
- Rumfa College, 1921 — still on the register, still admitting on the Qualifying Examination
- Kano Capital School, 1928 — among the oldest primary schools in the State
- Tsangaya Centre Kofar Wambai, 1902 — older than every government school in Kano
- Kano State Central Library, 1970 — the first of 30 public service points
Enrolment across the last seven sessions
Total enrolment and the share of girls, from the Annual School Census. The parity gap has narrowed in every session since 2019/2020.
| Session | Boys | Girls | Total | Girls' share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019/2020 | 1,486,000 | 1,012,000 | 2,498,000 | 40.5% |
| 2020/2021 | 1,534,000 | 1,098,000 | 2,632,000 | 41.7% |
| 2021/2022 | 1,588,000 | 1,186,000 | 2,774,000 | 42.8% |
| 2022/2023 | 1,642,000 | 1,294,000 | 2,936,000 | 44.1% |
| 2023/2024 | 1,698,000 | 1,402,000 | 3,100,000 | 45.2% |
| 2024/2025 | 1,744,000 | 1,506,000 | 3,250,000 | 46.3% |
| 2025/2026 | 1,792,000 | 1,608,000 | 3,400,000 | 47.3% |
What has actually changed
Two numbers carry most of the story. Enrolment has risen from about 2.5 million learners in 2019/2020 to about 3.4 million in the current session, an increase of roughly 900,000 in six years — more children than are enrolled in the whole of many states. Over the same period the share of girls in that total has moved from 40.5 per cent to 47.3 per cent, which is the single largest shift in the modern history of the sector here.
What has not changed enough is the pupil–teacher ratio, which stands at 44:1 across basic education and is considerably worse than that in the fastest-growing peri-urban wards. Recruitment, the upgrading of Grade II and NCE teachers, and the redeployment of teachers from over-staffed metropolitan schools to under-staffed rural ones are the sector's standing priorities, and progress against them is reported each year.
Six years of growth
+900k
Additional learners
2019/2020 to 2025/2026
47.3%
Girls' share of enrolment
From 40.5 per cent in 2019/2020
480
Tsangaya schools registered
Under the integration programme since 2019
82.4%
Transition to senior secondary
JSS 3 leavers placed in an SS 1 seat
The record, published
Census returns, enrolment series, budget performance and the annual report of the sector are open and downloadable.