Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has approved a census for all schools in Nigeria from basic to tertiary level, to ascertain their conditions and live-in facilities, proximity to one another, and the state of educational infrastructure across the schools.
The President has also approved system-wide policies that include Data Repository, Out-of-School Children Education, Teacher Training & Development, and Skills Development and Acquisition (DOTS).
These were made known on Thursday in a statement signed by the President’s Spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale. He said the census will also include teachers headcount, their qualifications, training support received so far in the last few years.
According to Ngelale, the school census will address the paucity of coordinated, verifiable, and authentic data on all aspects of the education sector in Nigeria.
He added that the Presidential directives are to guide federal and state interventions for teachers’ training and development as well as overall support.
The presidential aide added that the headcount will provide data on gender ratio (boys and girls), their specific learning needs, and dropout rates based on daily monitoring with year-by-year reporting.
Data Tracking
Ngelale noted that the new data-tracking architecture will enable the government to track students’ progress, hence having a clear data-driven mechanism for interventions, especially concerning out-of-school children, girls, and those with specific learning disabilities, among others.
Out-of-school children
On Out-of-school children’s education and training, Ngelale made known that the Federal Ministry of Education is already implementing the government’s policy through the activities of four of its agencies.
The Special Adviser to the President emphasised that there will be a dedicated portal/dashboard in the Federal Ministry of Education, offices of state governors, and local government chairpersons, which will host and disseminate more information to the federal government, states, and local governments to monitor the exercise in real-time.
Teachers’ development and support
Under this programme, Ngelale said that the Federal Ministry of Education will support and train teachers in digital skills to facilitate the use of technology in classrooms.
He said this is expected to bring technology and digitisation to teachers and learners at all levels of education.
Skill development and acquisition
On Skill development and acquisition for all levels, the Presidential aide disclosed that President Tinubu approved the National Skills Framework designed to provide the appropriate skills for each level of education.
He said this will result in the empowering of generations of Nigerians with the required aptitude for the evolving needs of the global economy of the 21st century.
He further explained that the President approved an overhaul on this to enhance skill diversity in the education sector to effectively equip Nigerian students with the requisite skills, knowledge, and values to become functional and productive members of society.
This framework is expected to address skill gaps, quality of education, and unemployment concerns as students will acquire certain skill sets, in addition to general knowledge.
It is expected that once fully implemented, these programmes will succeed in resetting learning and connecting the ‘DOTS’ for significant improvement of the overall education system in Nigeria, in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
VON