The Federal Government has announced plans to scrap the Junior Secondary School Common Entrance Examination and introduce a Learner Identification Number to track pupils from Primary School through their academic journey.
Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, said during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Saturday that the proposed reforms are aimed at improving access to education and ensuring better tracking of pupils across the country.
He noted that the common entrance examination would be phased out and replaced with a more comprehensive evaluation system.
According to the Minister: “It will be replaced by Continuous Assessment (CA). The CA will reflect the performance of the pupil from Primary one and even if a pupil is transferring from one school to another, he will take it along to his new school.”
He added that the new system would help address gaps in the transition from Primary to Secondary education, particularly the large number of pupils who fail to progress to the next level.
Providing data to support the reform, Alausa said millions of pupils enrolled in public primary schools do not continue their education at the secondary level.
“We have over 50,000 public primary schools in the country with over 23 million pupils. However, from statistics available to us, only a little over 3 million among those pupils move to the junior secondary school level in our public schools, then the question is, where are the about 20 million not enrolled in our public secondary schools?” he queried.
He noted that the situation points to a major access problem, stressing the need for state governments to build more schools.
“It is obvious that we cannot say our private schools accommodate all of them. The issue is simply lack of access and we are working on that. There is need to build more schools and I have met the Nigerian Governors’ Forum over that. State governments need to build more schools to accommodate more pupils and students,” he said.
To address tracking challenges, the minister said the government would introduce the Learner Identification Number for pupils from the primary school level.
“To also follow up on our pupils and students, we are introducing the Learner Identification Number right from primary school level for our children. It will be unique to each child and they will have the number no matter where they started schooling or later transferred to,” he explained.
He added that the system would enable authorities to monitor students’ progress and identify those who drop out of school.
“If somebody is expected to be in JSS class one and he is not there, we will be able to know the reason why he is not continuing his education,” Alausa said.
The Minister further disclosed that efforts are ongoing to revive the school feeding programme to boost enrolment in public schools, adding that the initiative may be moved to the Federal Ministry of Education for improved monitoring.
The proposed reforms form part of broader efforts by the government to strengthen the education sector, improve retention rates, and ensure that more Nigerian children complete basic education.
Written with reports from PUNCH, Nigerian Tribune
