Through its school sensitization programme in the Southwest, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) aims to make schools sanctuaries of moral awakening, civic education, and personal transformation.
One morning in October 2023, students at St. Peter’s Unity Secondary School in Akure, capital of Ondo State, gathered for what they assumed would be another school assembly. But instead of the usual announcements, they were greeted by a team from the National Orientation Agency (NOA).
That morning marked the beginning of a renewed and vigorous campaign by the NOA in the Southwest geo-political zone, comprising Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, and Ekiti, to engage students, teachers, and education stakeholders in a school-based sensitization programme aimed at transforming the moral, civic, and personal consciousness of Nigeria’s youth.
Since October 2023, the programme has reached an about 2,000 schools and engaged more than 250,000 students across the geo-political zone, focusing on key issues ranging from drug abuse and digital safety to patriotism, gender-based violence prevention, and national values.
In recent years, educators, parents, and policymakers have been raising concerns about the decline in morality, rising cultism, sexual exploitation, and growing disinterest in civic responsibility among Nigerian youths. In the South-West zone, where there are relatively high literacy rates, there have been reports of widespread exam malpractices, substance abuse, peer violence, and cyber fraud have risen, which have heightened public apprehension.
The NOA’s approach to tackling the issues was going to the roots-in the school-and was borne out of the realization that the children do not lack intelligence, but direction and, therefore, need moral and civic intervention.
The sensitization initiative is structured around multi-topic engagement sessions designed to stimulate awareness, critical thinking, and values clarification. Delivered through interactive assemblies, workshops, and student forums, the key themes include drug abuse, cultism, sexual and gender-based violence prevention, digital safety and cyber ethics. Others are national values, unity, national identity, patriotism, exam malpractice, integrity, mental health and self-esteem.
In Ogun State, the NOA partnered with the Ministry of Education to include interactive drama performances depicting the dangers of cultism. In Osun, students engaged in debates about ethical leadership. In Lagos, the sessions were supplemented with digital media kits, giving students a chance to learn through podcasts and animated videos.
At Methodist Girls’ High School, Yaba, students participated in a breakout session on cyberbullying and online scams, through which they learnt how fraud destroys lives, not just of victims but also of perpetrators when they get caught. One of the core strengths of the programme is its collaborative approach. Teachers and school administrators are not just observers, but are active participants. This has resulted in the inclusion of values-based discussion in morning devotions and class meetings.
In Lagos and Ondo states, NOA organized teacher empowerment seminars, at which educators were trained in recognizing signs of abuse or addiction, how to discuss sensitive issues like rape and domestic violence as well as techniques for cultivating student leadership and civic engagement. Additionally, NOA State Directors regularly meet with the state ministries of education and school boards to align the programme with local academic calendars, ensuring continuity.
In a bid to make the campaign sustainable, the NOA initiated the “Young Ambassadors for National Rebirth” club in select schools across the region. These clubs are student-led and focus on advocacy, peer mentorship, and community outreach. Since the club launch in early 2024, over 700 schools now have active chapters, with members organizing debates, talent shows, street clean-ups, and voter education drives. Members of the club visit juvenile correctional homes to speak to young offenders about second chances.
While urban schools have easy access to NOA programmes, rural and semi-urban communities have not been left behind. In Osun and Ekiti, where infrastructural deficits and language barriers exist, the NOA translated materials into Yoruba and adopted community radio to reach out-of-school youth.
In January 2024, a mobile sensitization team visited schools in Ijebu North East Local Government Area of Ogun State, some of which had never received any external civic education outreach before. The team took along flipcharts, local interpreters, and used storytelling to address issues like rape in ways the girls could relate to. The team also distributed emergency contact cards with referral pathways for counseling and reporting abuse, especially in schools without trained guidance counselors.
To widen the reach, the NOA leveraged regional media. In Lagos, programmes like “Tomorrow’s Leaders” on LTV featured NOA officers discussing youth ethics. On radio stations across the region (Splash FM and Fresh FM in Ibadan as well as Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC), weekly segments featured live call-ins where students could ask questions anonymously.
The programme also made use of social media. The hashtag #MyValuesMyFuture, launched in November 2023, went viral among students and teachers, with TikTok videos, short skits, and motivational messages spreading rapidly among the youth demographic.
One such video — a 90-second dramatization of a student refusing to join a cult group — garnered over 500,000 views within two weeks.
While some benefits of the sensitization programme may take years to fully materialize, early impact assessments are promising. A joint NOA and NGO-led evaluation in February 2025 showed 42% increase in students’ awareness of reporting mechanisms for sexual abuse, 30% decline in self-reported exam malpractice among senior secondary students in Osun and Ogun states as well as high demand for repeat sessions and expansion to junior secondary and primary levels.
At the closing ceremony of a school outreach in Ado-Ekiti in March 2025, a student named Grace stood up and said: “Before, I used to think all that matters is passing WAEC. But now I know: who I am matters more than my grades.”
The NOA is already scaling up the programme with new components such as mental health workshops in collaboration with school psychologists, parent-teacher sensitization forums to align home and school values, inclusion of students with disabilities through sign language interpreters and Braille materials as well as pilot training for school-based gender response teams
Also in the offing are plans to integrate components of the sensitization programme into the civic education curriculum, ensuring sustainability beyond the current wave of outreach.