Insecurity and Primary School Access in Kaduna State: A Spatial Analysis of School Closures and Pupil Displacement in Soba and Ikara Local Government Areas

Armed banditry and kidnapping have disrupted basic education across north-western Nigeria, and Kaduna State officials link a large fall in primary enrolment to insecurity. Little is known about how the losses are distributed in space at school level. This paper examines the spatial pattern of primary school closure, the scale of pupil displacement, and the association between proximity to recorded attacks and enrolment change in Soba and Ikara Local Government Areas (LGAs). A convergent mixed-methods design combined GIS mapping and nearest neighbour analysis of 96 public primary schools (52 in Soba, 44 in Ikara), 2019/20 to 2023/24 enrolment records, and 18 key informant interviews with head teachers and Universal Basic Education Board officials. Enrolment in the sampled schools fell from 25,476 to 14,230 pupils (-44.1%). 32 of 96 schools were closed or merged. Schools within 5 km of a recorded attack lost 69.3% of pupils against 32.8% elsewhere (t(70.0) = -4.70, p < .001). Each additional kilometre from an incident was associated with a 3.3 percentage-point smaller loss (β = .45, p < .001). If replicated with field data, the pattern would indicate that insecurity operates as a distance-decay shock on access. Spatially targeted safe-school investment, relocation planning and catch-up learning are recommended.