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By Stephen Adeleye.
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, says the inability of most States to sustain Annual School Census (ASC) is causing a great setback to solving the nation’s problem of Out-of-School Children syndrome.
Adamu said this at the opening of a three-day 2nd National Conference on Education Management Information System (NEMIS) 2018, on Monday in Lokoja.
He said that Nigeria had not been able to holistically provide education data to UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) for global comparison and efficient education planning.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the conference is “Making Every Learner’s Environment Count: A Panacea for Empirical Education Data and Solving the Problem of Out-of School Children Syndrome in Nigeria.”
Represented by Dr (Mrs) Chioma Nwadei, Director Educational Planning, Research & Development, Federal Ministry of Education, Adamu said that the conference was to review EMIS activities towards improving the management of the nation’s education data.
“The conference is also poised to identify innovative strategies for the generation and prompt reporting of credible data in the education sector.
“It is therefore vital that we gather at this forum to brainstorm in order to evaluate the progress made, challenges encountered and chart the way forward.
“This will be done to ascertain the current status of annual school census activities in the states and EMIS activities nationwide, important decisions taken as well as addressing inadequacies.
“In achieving global best practices in Data Management, the challenge of conducting a holistic and credible ASC for the nation must be speedily confronted is the issue,” Adamu said.
The minister further said that the Federal Ministry of Education in collaboration with the World Bank had assisted some states with the conduct of the 2016/2017 ASC in order to bridge the data gap.
He added; “This is another pointer to the Federal Government’s commitment to provide quality and timely education data at all levels”.
Mrs Rosemary Osikoya, Kogi Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, said the hosting of the conference by Kogi, further demonstrates the commitment of Gov. Yahaya Bello to supporting effective delivery of quality education in the state.
She noted that Kogi was not receiving any support from World Bank, UNICEF or other development partners, because the past data used to benchmark states in Nigeria, did not correctly capture the reality of Kogi.
“Kogi is a rural state and has high number of out of school children and prevalence of teenage pregnancy. The 2018 ASC conducted in the state was solely funded by the state government.
“Kogi does have a need and we hope to receive proactive interventions especially the general and specific supports from the World Bank, UNICEF and other development partners,” the commissioner said.
She added that Kogi had recorded lots of achievements in education such as having proper data management, EMIS, website, and repositioning of policy framework, among others.
NAN reports that the conference was attended by representatives from all the 36 states across Nigeria including the FCT, and all the relevant stakeholders and development partners.
(NAN)
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