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The Nigerian government is set to introduce a Learner Identification Number (LIN) for schoolchildren from primary level, aimed at tracking students’ academic progress throughout their education.
The initiative, disclosed by the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, is part of efforts to improve education access and increase completion rates from basic to senior secondary education.
Speaking to journalists in Lagos, Alausa noted the gap between primary and secondary school enrollment.
“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?” Alausa said.
He also noted that private schools cannot account for all the missing students, adding that “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 explained that the LIN will be unique to each child and transferable across schools, enabling authorities to track students’ progress and identify reasons for dropouts.
“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.
“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,” he said.
The Minister also announced plans to phase out the common entrance examination for pupils moving to junior secondary school, replacing it with Continuous Assessment (CA), which will reflect performance from primary one and remain valid even if students transfer schools.
The government also intends to resuscitate the school feeding programme to attract more pupils to public schools.
The programme is expected to be transferred from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to the Federal Ministry of Education for better monitoring and management.
