REPORTS · OPEN DATA

Open data

Education data published as data, not as a picture of a table inside a PDF. Enrolment, schools, teachers, examinations, budget and census indicators, under an open licence, for anyone who wants to check our arithmetic.

Why the Ministry publishes it

A ministry of education asks parents to send their children to its schools and asks the State to commit more than a quarter of its budget to them. The least it can do in return is publish what it counted, in a form that can be examined rather than merely admired. Every figure quoted anywhere on this site comes from the datasets below, and anyone who wants to reproduce a chart, check a total, compare two local government areas or challenge a trend can do so without asking our permission.

The data is aggregated, always. It is published by school, by category, by level, by local government area, by zone and by session — never by person. No dataset contains the name of a pupil, a teacher, a parent or a candidate, no examination score attributable to an individual, and no household information. Personal data is protected under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, and the aggregation thresholds are set so that a small cell cannot be used to infer an individual.

Census and enrolment datasets are published once a session, after the Directorate of Planning, Research and Statistics has signed the tables. Budget performance is published quarterly, within twenty working days of the end of the quarter. Examination outcomes are published within thirty days of the release of results by the awarding body. Figures published before sign-off are marked provisional, and revisions are logged in a changelog rather than made silently.

The datasets are used. Researchers at Bayero University and Kano University of Science and Technology, the development partners working in the State, journalists, school proprietors comparing their own school with the ward around it, and the Ministry's own directorates all work from the same published files. That is the point: one set of numbers, available to everyone who wants to argue about them.

The catalogue

Published datasets

Covering the whole sector

2016

Earliest session covered

Enrolment series runs to date

Formats

CSV, JSON, XLSX and GeoJSON

Free

Cost and licence

Open licence, attribution required

Available datasets

Every dataset carries a data dictionary, a methodology note and a changelog. Cite the dataset name and the version you used.

Dataset	Granularity	Period covered	Format	Update cycle
Enrolment by LGA, level and sex	LGA × level × sex × session	2016/2017 – present	CSV, JSON	Once a session
Enrolment series by session	Session × sex	2016/2017 – present	CSV, JSON	Once a session
School register	School	Current, with quarterly snapshots	CSV, JSON, GeoJSON	Quarterly
School infrastructure condition	School × facility	2019/2020 – present	CSV, GeoJSON	Once a session
Annual School Census indicators	School × indicator × session	2016/2017 – present	CSV, JSON	Once a session
Teacher establishment and qualification	LGA × qualification × sex	2018/2019 – present	CSV, JSON	Once a session
TRCN registration position	LGA × board × status	2020/2021 – present	CSV	Twice a session
Examination entries and outcomes	Examination × LGA × sex × session	2016/2017 – present	CSV, JSON	On result release
Examination centre register	Centre × examination	Current session	CSV, GeoJSON	Once a session
Out-of-school children estimates	LGA × age band × sex	2019/2020 – present	CSV, XLSX	Once a session
Budget appropriation and release	Board × economic head × quarter	2019 – present	CSV, XLSX	Quarterly
Capital project register	Project × school × contractor	2019 – present	CSV, GeoJSON	Quarterly
Capitation and grant disbursement	School × tranche × session	2020/2021 – present	CSV	Twice a session
Service standard attainment	Service × month	2022 – present	CSV	Monthly
Approved school register and licence status	School × approval status	Current, with session snapshots	CSV, JSON	Quarterly
Programme reach and expenditure	Programme × LGA × session	2019/2020 – present	CSV, XLSX	Once a session

Licence and terms of use

Published under an open licence. You do not need to ask, register or explain what you intend to do with it.

You may copy, adapt, publish and redistribute the data, including commercially and in a derived work.
Attribution is required: cite the Kano State Ministry of Education, the dataset name and the version.
Do not present the data in a way that implies the Ministry endorses your analysis or your conclusions.
Provisional figures are marked as such and must be described as provisional wherever they are reproduced.
Revisions are logged in the changelog published with each dataset; always cite the version you worked from.
The datasets contain no personal data and must not be combined with other sources in an attempt to identify a pupil, a teacher, a candidate or a parent.
Geo-coordinates are published for schools and public facilities only, never for a residence.
No warranty is given as to fitness for any particular purpose, and the Ministry accepts no liability for decisions taken on the data.
If you find an error, report it at info@moe.kn.gov.ng with the dataset, the version and the row — corrections are published with attribution to the person who found them.

Using the data

Four steps from the catalogue to a defensible figure.

Read the methodology note first

Each dataset has one. It states what was counted, when, by whom, what is excluded and what changed since the previous version. Most disagreements about education figures turn out to be disagreements about definitions.

Take the version, not just the file

Every file carries a version and a publication date in its name and its header row. Quote both. A figure cited without a version cannot be reproduced by anyone else, including us.

Check whether the figures are provisional

Census tables are provisional until the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics signs them, and the flag is in the file. Provisional figures may move; final figures move only through a logged revision.

Ask for what is not there

If you need a cut that is not published — a longer series, a different disaggregation, or a machine endpoint rather than a file — write to info@moe.kn.gov.ng for the attention of the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics. Requests that are reasonable and do not risk identifying an individual are usually met, and once met the cut is added to the catalogue for everyone.

Aggregated only — no learner, teacher or parent-level data

Nothing published here identifies an individual. There is no pupil record, no teacher record, no candidate score, no parent detail and no household information in any dataset, and none will be published. Personal data held by the Ministry is processed under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and is disclosed only to the person concerned, to a parent or guardian for a child, or where the law requires it.

Aggregation thresholds are applied before publication: a cell covering fewer than ten learners is suppressed and marked, so that a small class in a small school cannot be used to work backwards to a named child. Suppressed cells are visible in the data as a suppression flag rather than removed, so totals still reconcile.

Questions about the data

Why do figures sometimes change after publication?

Because validation and verification continue after a census closes. A school may answer a query late, a verification visit may correct a return, or a board may reconcile a termly return against the payroll. Every change is recorded in the dataset changelog with the date, the old figure, the new figure and the reason. Nothing is altered silently.

Why is there no learner-level or teacher-level data?

Because it is personal data under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, and because a pupil, a teacher or a candidate did not consent to being a public record. The Ministry publishes aggregates only, applies a suppression threshold below ten, and will not release a dataset that could be re-identified by combination.

How far back does the data go?

The enrolment and census series run from the 2016/2017 session, which is when the census moved to digital enumeration and became comparable session to session. Data before 2016 exists on paper in the Ministry archive but was collected on a different instrument and cannot be published with confidence. Specific historical requests are handled by the Directorate of Planning, Research and Statistics.

Do the budget datasets reconcile to the audited accounts?

Yes. The annual appropriation and release totals agree with the education figures in the State's audited financial statements. Where a timing difference arises between a warrant issued in one year and cash drawn in the next, it is explained in the notes published with the annual file rather than smoothed away.

Is there an API?

Yes, a read-only JSON endpoint for each dataset, available on request from the Directorate of Planning, Research and Statistics. It is rate-limited and requires a key, purely so that the service stays up — not to restrict who may have the data. Bulk files remain downloadable without a key.

Can I get the geo-coordinates of every school?

Yes. The school register and the infrastructure condition dataset are published as GeoJSON with the coordinate of each school gate, captured on the tablet during enumeration. Coordinates are published for schools and public facilities only, never for a residence.

The number in your annual report does not match the number in this dataset. Which is right?

The dataset, if its version is later than the report. Reports are a snapshot at the date of publication; datasets carry revisions. Check the changelog for the figure concerned, and if the two cannot be reconciled tell us at info@moe.kn.gov.ng — a genuine inconsistency is a defect and we will publish the correction.

May I republish the data on my own site or in an app?

Yes, including commercially. Attribute the Ministry, name the dataset and the version, do not imply that we endorse your conclusions, and mark provisional figures as provisional. You do not need our permission and you do not need to tell us — though we like to know.

Start with the dashboards, then take the files

Enrolment, examination and budget dashboards are built from exactly these datasets, so anything you see charted can be downloaded and rebuilt.

Education statistics Annual report School census