President Bola Tinubu has issued a directive on the conduct of a comprehensive census to ascertain the fault lines and aid proper planning due to lack of authentic data on all aspects of the education sector in Nigeria.
This was contained in a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity who noted that the policy DOTS, an acronym for Data Repository, Out-of-School Children Education, Teacher Training and Development, and Skill Development and Acquisition will comprehensively overhaul the education sector to improve learning and skill development, increase enrollment, and ensure the academic security of the nation’s children.
The presidency said the information gotten from the exercise will serve as guide for federal and state interventions in teachers’ training and development as well as overall support.
“It will also provide data on gender ratio (boys and girls), their specific learning needs, and who is in school or who has dropped out based on daily monitoring with year-by-year reporting,” the statement read.
“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 this information for the federal government, states, and local governments to monitor in real time.
“This new data tracking architecture will enable the government to track the progress of students, thus having a clear data-driven mechanism for interventions, especially concerning out-of-school children, [especially] girls, and those with specific learning disabilities, among others,” the presidential spokesman added.
On the challenges of out-of-school children’s education and training, the Federal Ministry of Education said the implementation of the government’s policy has started through the activities of four of its agencies, with about two million beneficiaries already recorded.
The presidential directive handed down on Thursday, is expected to produce data on all schools in Nigeria from primary to tertiary level.
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