Nigeria has one of the highest numbers (over 20 million) of out-of-school children (OOSC) globally, underscoring the urgent need to address this crisis. While contemporary studies on OOSC are largely concerned with the determinants, a spatio-temporal analysis, which examines the spatial distribution of OOSC and how it evolves overtime, can offer additional insights and inform spatially explicit solutions to the challenge of OOSC in Nigeria. Using spatial statistical techniques, such as Global Moran’s I, Local Moran’s I, and Getis-Ord Gi*, we examine the geographical patterns of OOSC in Nigeria for 2016, 2018, and 2022. Findings suggest an increasing and strengthening trend of spatial concentration in the distribution of OOSC over time. Although significant clustering was present in 2016, it was more pronounced and spatially entrenched by 2022. Specifically, the Northwest and Northeast regions remain endemic to the crisis of OOSC. Southern states consistently maintained a low rate of OOSC relative to the North, however; the appearance of High Low (HL) outlier in Ogun and Osun suggest that Southern states are not totally free from this crisis. The study recommends that the government needs to implement targeted interventions that are context-specific to address the crisis of OOSC in Nigeria.
Adeleke et al. (2026) studied this question.