By George OPARA
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has disclosed that 80 percent of development partner investments in Nigeria’s education sector over the last decade went to two geopolitical zones that currently still record the lowest learning outcomes and highest rates of out-of-school children.
At Stakeholders Workshop on the Nigeria Education Data Infrastructure (NEDI)in Abuja on Thursday, Alausa disclosed this in his keynote, noting the imbalance became clear only after the government began consolidating education data into a single platform.
“As I was challenging and l lamenting to the World Bank yesterday, I said, when you’re pouring these monies into zones, what are you looking at? Don’t you look at the outcomes?” he said.
But the minister who declined to make public the two zones involved in wasting the education fund, explained that for years, Nigeria’s education data was fragmented, making it impossible to know accurate enrolment figures or track students across schools.
He said the new system now captures data from pre-primary to tertiary levels, providing details on students, teachers, classrooms, computers, and even washbasins.
“I can tell you today, the school, your primary school, your district, the number of students there, the number of boys, the number of girls, the number of teachers, the population of those teachers. And again, the facilities in that primary school. Just sit in the ministry, and you will be able to have access to that data, because it’s cloud-based”.
At the heart of the reform is the National Learner Identification Number, which will be linked to the National Identification Number to create a unique, immutable identity for every student.
The minister said the system would eliminate fraud, end the era of “miracle centres,” and allow the government to track students who move between schools or drop out.
“If a student starts school in a new state, today primary one, and that parent moves to Lagos at primary two, we will know that this student started at this school, in this local government, at this ward, in this school,” he explained.
Alausa said the data would now drive planning, budgeting, and targeted interventions.
“If you don’t use data in planning, in formulating your plans, in intervening and monitoring our education, then you are flying blind. So data is everything,” he said.
He added that the government would use the platform to align courses in tertiary institutions with labour market needs.
“We label gap needs analysis across the country, because we’re going to be working with NBS. What are the kind of jobs they need? ,” he said.
The minister also announced that students sitting for WAEC this month would be issued their learner ID numbers, with the goal of ensuring all students in school have one within the next few months.
He credited the progress to collaboration with state commissioners, the National Population Commission, examination bodies, and development partners, singling out the role of data partner Ernst & Young in building the system.
Alausa said the platform would be open to the public and integrated with AI to make data accessible.
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