Nigeria's Mega Churches and Out-of-School Children

An Eko One-Parish-One-School initiative would not eliminate random generosity, but it would direct it into a more strategic framework.

Lagos now faces a choice. It can continue to see the religious sector as just a source of lost revenue, a political tool, or a moral scandal. Or it can take a bold step: recognise that in a deeply religious society, the way to achieve universal basic education might involve engaging the pulpit and inviting its churches and mosques to make a courageous, transparent, and urgent commitment to ensure every child is in school.

In Lagos, it's easier to find a church than a public school. Street after street, you are greeted with parish banners announcing new branch openings next Sunday. Yet, in this same city of rapid religious growth, tens of thousands of children still wake up each morning with nowhere to learn, falling into the informal economy, facing vulnerability, and a future already obscured. The paradox is clear: how can a city overflowing with churches and mosques also have so many children out of school?

This tension lies at the heart of Nigeria's education crisis, especially in Lagos State, where the state faces an enormous challenge in getting every child into school. Nationwide, UNICEF estimates about 18.5 million children are out of school, with roughly 60 per cent of them being girls; the worst figures globally. Recent studies show that about one in four Nigerian children is out of school, and 75 per cent of those enrolled still lack basic foundational skills. Lagos may not have the highest total numbers, but it bears a significant burden: media reports based on the 2019 Annual School Census estimated Lagos' out-of-school children at around half a million, mostly in low-income and informal settlements. Standing in Ojuelegba, Agege, or Makoko at 10 a.m. on a school day makes these numbers very real.

According to some estimates, Nigeria's religious industry, which includes churches, mosques, traditional religions, and related businesses, could be valued at up to ₦500 trillion in assets and revenue. While this figure is debated, Nigerians, both at home and abroad, recognise the key reality: religion is among the country's most powerful economic and social forces. Religious organisations own land, buildings, media empires, universities, printing presses, and benefit from a steady stream of local donations that no formal foundation or NGO can match.

Lagos is the centre of this religious economy. Official data show that there are at least 10,000 registered churches and mosques in the state alone, excluding unregistered prayer houses and informal groups. Many of Nigeria's largest megachurches either have their headquarters in Lagos or run extensive networks of parishes across the state. On any given weekday, their compounds are alive with activity: morning devotions, midweek services, counselling sessions, entrepreneurial trainings, and youth fellowships. These are not just places of worship; they serve as social infrastructures embedded within each community.

Alongside this religious abundance, Lagos is racing to address its education crisis. The state recently launched a $25 million Lagos State Education Access Fund, aiming to enrol 50,000 out-of-school children and support about 150,000 learners with better access and quality. Through earlier efforts, officials say they have already identified, tracked, and enrolled more than 36,000 children back into the formal system. These are significant steps, but they are still overwhelmed by demographic pressure, economic hardships, and the enormous scale of deprivation.

In this context, simply recycling familiar complaints about churches and mosques -- such as lack of transparency, ostentatious wealth, prosperity preaching, or converting warehouses into prayer centres, while public schools decline -- no longer suffices. These criticisms are valid. However, they risk overlooking a larger strategic question: If Nigerians continue trusting religious institutions with their resources and deepest loyalties, what would it take to channel that trust into a sustainable educational agreement?

Several months ago, during a conversation with a Honourable member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, I floated an idea: what if Lagos launched an education expansion programme called "Eko One-Parish-One-School"? The concept was simple: for every new church parish approved in the state, the sponsoring mega church would be required to build a basic school or adopt an existing one for a set number of years. The legislator listened politely, shook his head, and called it "crazy."

He was not entirely wrong. On the surface, it sounds audacious, intrusive even. Why link places of worship to school building projects? Why burden religious organisations with what should be a government responsibility? Why stir up the hornet's nest of religious politics in a country already on edge?

But that "crazy" label is exactly the point. Out-of-school children in Lagos exemplify what policy scholars call a "wicked problem": complex, multi-causal, self-reinforcing, and resistant to incremental fixes. Wicked problems are not solved by timid ideas. They require coalitions, experimentation, and often, proposals that initially sound unreasonable, precisely because they break with the comfortable habits that caused the crisis in the first place.

If we agree that it is "crazy" for hundreds of thousands of children in Nigeria's commercial capital to be out of school under the shadow of gleaming cathedrals, then it might also be time to consider a similar level of "craziness" in our solutions.

Reevaluated on its merits, the Eko One-Parish-One-School idea is not as outlandish as it initially appears. The main idea is this: Lagos should officially acknowledge the religious sector as a vital philanthropic resource for basic education and create a structured agreement that connects religious growth to educational development.

Under such a programme:

Mega churches and large mosques would commit to building or adopting at least one basic school for each parish or major branch they establish in Lagos.
Any approval for a new parish would require demonstrating a concrete educational investment, such as constructing a school in an underserved area or officially supporting a public or low-fee school for, say, five years.
The programme would only apply to faith organisations that meet specific thresholds -- such as membership size, asset base, and number of parishes -- to avoid burdening small congregations.

With over 10,000 registered religious bodies in Lagos, even a modest increase could be transformational. Imagine if 500 mega congregations each built or adopted just one school over the next five years. That would lead to 500 new or significantly improved schools, many of which are in communities where children currently travel long distances or are not enrolled at all. Imagine if each of those schools prioritised out-of-school children in their catchment areas, working with government programmes like the Education Access Fund and Project Zero to identify, enrol, and retain them.

This is not about outsourcing the state's responsibility to educate its children. It is about aligning the seriousness of the issue with the resources already present in our pews and prayer grounds.

To be clear, religious organisations are already active in education and welfare. Churches and mosques pay school fees, run scholarship programmes, distribute food, and provide emergency aid to families in need. In many communities, it is often the local pastor or imam who discreetly pays off debts, so a child is not sent home again. This exemplifies philanthropy in its most personal, relationship-based form.

Yet, this giving is often fragmented and short-term. It addresses immediate needs but rarely leads to systemic change. Congregations raise millions to build new auditoriums while nearby public primary schools operate double shifts in overcrowded classrooms. The religious sector is thus both a safety net and, unintentionally, a missed opportunity.

An Eko One-Parish-One-School initiative would not eliminate random generosity, but it would direct it into a more strategic framework: each increase in religious presence in a community would be accompanied by an increase in educational opportunities for that community's children. It would turn private spiritual assets into public developmental capital.

Of course, explicitly incorporating religious institutions into education policy raises genuine concerns.

Accountability comes first. Many Nigerians are concerned about opaque religious finances and misappropriation. The solution is not to demand forensic audits of tithes and offerings, but to promote light-touch transparency regarding the education projects themselves: locations of schools built or adopted, numbers of students served, basic budget details, and simple public reporting. If corporate CSR initiatives and NGOs can accept this standard, so can faith-based education partners.

Equity is the second. Faith-owned schools have sometimes been accused of excluding the poor or favouring children of congregants. For an OOSC-focused compact, any school contributing to public targets must commit to open, non-discriminatory enrolment, gender equality, affordable fees, and proactive inclusion of children who have never attended school or who dropped out.

Quality is the third. The state's responsibility doesn't end when a church cuts the ribbon on a new classroom building. Lagos must ensure that any school built or taken over under its oversight follows the state curriculum, meets teacher qualification standards, and complies with child protection policies. Faith-based education can and should promote values, but it cannot become a separate system disconnected from national standards.

Ultimately, the question is not whether religion is too large, too chaotic, or too compromised to serve as a development partner. It already functions as one -- informally. Churches and mosques are bridging Nigeria's growing welfare gap every day, often in ways that go unnoticed by policy documents but are very real to families on the edge. The issue is that this enormous pool of local philanthropy is seldom directed, on a large scale, toward the structural investments -- particularly in education -- that will determine whether Lagos' young population becomes a demographic dividend or a demographic time bomb.

The Honourable who dismissed Eko One-Parish-One-School as "crazy," was, in a way, giving it a backhanded compliment. It is crazy only in the sense that it refuses to accept as normal a city with an ever-increasing number of religious organisations where children still wander the streets during school hours. Faced with a wicked problem like Lagos's out-of-school children crisis, caution and incrementalism start to seem like the truly irrational choices.

Lagos now faces a choice. It can continue to see the religious sector as just a source of lost revenue, a political tool, or a moral scandal. Or it can take a bold step: recognise that in a deeply religious society, the way to achieve universal basic education might involve engaging the pulpit and inviting its churches and mosques to make a courageous, transparent, and urgent commitment to ensure every child is in school.

Dayo Olaide is a development practitioner and philanthropy expert. Email: dayo.olaide@ideapf.com

Read the original article on Premium Times.

Nigeria's Mega Churches and Out-of-School Children

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