Kano and around

Best secondary schools in Kano: the shortlist, with fees where they are published

Kano's shortlist starts with the state's own colleges: Rumfa College (1954), Government College and Government Girls College Dala, which still take most of the city's able pupils at nominal fees. The two federal unity colleges sit at Kano and Minjibir. Above them in fee terms are Nigerian Tulip International College, St Louis (the Catholic girls' school), and a private tier of Lufaloy, Excel, Crescent, Prime, Elite and Hassan Ibrahim Gwarzo.

This page puts them in one table with the fee figure and where it came from. Kano's schools publish less than Lagos or Abuja ones; where a third-party page gives a figure we link it and say so. No Kano school publishes results in a comparable form, so there is no results ranking and no pass rate we cannot source.

14 schools listed, 4 with a fee figure and its source. Updated 21 September 2026.

How this list is ordered

Federal and state colleges with set fees come first, then the mission and international schools, then the private schools by fee transparency and by how often they appear across the eleven independent published lists we checked. Position is not a judgement of teaching quality.

•Ownership: federal unity college, state, mission, institutional or private
•Fee transparency: a figure on the school's own site beats a third-party estimate, which beats nothing
•Named on independent published lists of schools in the city
•Day or boarding, and the curriculum the school states it teaches
•A live profile on SchoolRegistry that the school can claim and correct

Fees. A figure marked 'school schedule' was read on the school's own website or fee document. 'Estimate' comes from the named third-party page linked beside it and can be a year or more out of date; treat it as the order of magnitude, not the invoice. 'Not published' means neither the school nor a source we would cite prints a figure. All figures exclude uniforms, books, PTA levies, transport and boarding extras unless the note says otherwise.

The list

#	School	Area	Type	Fees	Why it is here
1	Federal Government College, Kano Nigerian · Co-educational · Boarding	Kano	Federal unity college, boarding	₦100,000 per termestimate Source: FIJ breakdown of the unity colleges' ₦100,000 fee (2023) Tuition is free at federal unity colleges; the ₦100,000 a term set in 2023 covers boarding, feeding, insurance and levies (FIJ breakdown). Confirm the current figure with the college.	The unity college for Kano State, co-educational boarding, entry by the National Common Entrance Examination.
2	Federal Government Girls' College, Minjibir Nigerian · Girls · Boarding	Minjibir	Federal unity college, boarding	₦100,000 per termestimate Source: FIJ breakdown of the unity colleges' ₦100,000 fee (2023) Tuition is free at federal unity colleges; the ₦100,000 a term set in 2023 covers boarding, feeding, insurance and levies (FIJ breakdown). Confirm the current figure with the college.	The girls' unity college in Kano State, at Minjibir north-east of the city.
3	Rumfa College, Kano Nigerian · Boys · Boarding	Kano	Kano State, boys, boarding	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	The state's flagship boys' college since 1954, named for the fifteenth-century emir; the Kano equivalent of Barewa in Zaria.
4	Government College, Kano Nigerian · Boys · Boarding	Kano	Kano State, boarding	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	The state government college in the city; state fees are nominal.
5	Government Girls College, Dala Nigerian · Girls · Boarding	Dala	Kano State, girls, boarding	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	The state's flagship girls' boarding college at Dala.
6	Nigerian Tulip International College, Kano Nigerian with Cambridge options · Co-educational · Day and boarding	Kano	Private, day and boarding	Not published, ask the school Fees are given at admission; the figures online are for the Abuja campuses.	The Kano campus of the Tulip (formerly Turkish) colleges, the school most often cited in the north for science olympiad results.
7	St Louis Secondary School, Kano Nigerian · Girls · Boarding	Kano	Catholic mission, girls, boarding	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	The Catholic sisters' girls' school in Kano, named on two of the eleven independent lists we checked.
8	Hassan Ibrahim Gwarzo Secondary School Nigerian · Co-educational · Day and boarding	Kano	Private, day and boarding	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	Named on two of the eleven lists; a long-established private college in the city.
9	Lufaloy Schools Nigerian · Co-educational · Day	Kano	Private, day	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	Named on three of the eleven lists, the most of any Kano private school.
10	Excel College Nigerian · Co-educational · Day and boarding	Kano	Private, day and boarding	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	Named on three of the eleven lists.
11	Crescent International School Nigerian · Co-educational · Day	Kano Municipal	Private, day	₦130,000 to ₦250,000 per termestimate Source: Nigeria Private Schools (2024)	Named on two of the eleven lists; one of the few Kano schools with a published range.
12	Prime College Nigerian · Co-educational · Day and boarding	Kano Municipal	Private, day and boarding	₦50,000 to ₦250,000 per termestimate Source: Nigeria Private Schools (2025) The listed range spans nursery to secondary.	Named on two of the eleven lists.
13	Elite International School Nigerian · Co-educational · Day	Kano	Private, day	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	A Kano private school on the lists we checked; no published schedule.
14	Kano Capital School Nigerian · Co-educational · Day	Kano	Kano State owned, day	Not published, ask the school No schedule published by the school or a source we would cite.	The state-owned capital school, the Kano counterpart of Kaduna Capital School; fees set by the state.

Run a school on this list, or know a figure is out of date? Claim the profile and correct it; corrections with a fee schedule attached go live the same week.

By area

Kano city and Nassarawa GRA

Rumfa, Government College, FGC Kano, NTIC, St Louis and most of the private schools.

Dala and the old city

Government Girls College Dala and the state schools inside the walls.

Minjibir and out of town

FGGC Minjibir, north-east of the city.

What 'best' can and cannot mean in Kano

No school in Kano publishes WAEC or NECO results in a form that lets you compare one against another, and the pass rates printed on other lists are not sourced. So this page does not rank by results. What you can compare is what a school is, what it costs and whether it will tell you, whether it boards, and how long it has been doing this.

The fee column is the honest part. Where the only figure is a third-party estimate we link the page and the year; where nothing is published we say so rather than print the placeholder bands that circulate online.

What to ask on the visit

Ask for the full fee schedule in writing, including PTA levy, books, uniform, transport and any development or capital fee charged in the first year. Ask which examination board the school registers students for in SS3 (WAEC, NECO, IGCSE) and how many candidates it entered last year. Ask to see the timetable for a normal week, and where the school publishes its results. A school that answers all four in one visit is usually a school that runs well.

Questions parents ask about schools in Kano

How much do secondary schools in Kano charge per term?

Nominal levies at the state colleges, about ₦100,000 a term at the unity colleges, and ₦50,000 to ₦250,000 a term at the private schools that publish a range. NTIC and St Louis give fees at admission.

Which Kano schools are boarding only?

Rumfa, Government College, Government Girls College Dala, St Louis and the two unity colleges. NTIC and most private schools take day students too.

How do you get into Rumfa College?

Through the Kano State placement examination for JSS1; the school is a state boarding college and fees are nominal.

Which schools on this list publish their fees?

Crescent and Prime through third-party listings marked as estimates. The others give tuition at admission.

Why does this list not show WAEC pass rates?

Because no Kano school publishes results in a comparable form and we will not print a number we cannot source.

Kano on the register

SchoolRegistry data, 2026-10-02

We hold 1,512 schools in Kano, out of 38,124 nationally. These are counts from our own register rather than estimates, which is why they will not match a published national total: they count what is recorded, not what exists.

Inside Kano

Largest areas by schools on the register

Dala300

Fagge189

Kumbotso84

Bichi70

Kano67

Wudil63

Gwale60

Gwarzo57

Areas are recorded as the source gives them, so a city and a local government area can both appear. Counted on 2026-10-02.

What kind of schools

Education level mix in Kano

secondary: 55%
primary: 24%
nursery: 20%
university: 1%
professional: 0%

Share of the 1,512 schools we hold for Kano, by the level each one is recorded at.

Private or government

Ownership mix in Kano

private: 70%
government: 29%
specialized: 0%

The private share is high because private schools are more consistently listed in the public records we ingest, not because government schools are rarer on the ground. Treat this as a measure of our coverage.

Fees: we hold a figure for 9,137 schools, of which 8,947 are an estimated band rather than a fee quoted by the school. We show fees as ranges for that reason, and confirming with the school is still the only way to know what you will pay. Counts generated from the register on 2026-10-02.