Every student sitting the 2026 WAEC or NECO examination now has a Permanent Academic Identity, after the Federal Government issued unique Learner Identification Numbers to more than 1.9 million registered candidates in what officials are describing as the most significant structural reform to Nigeria's student data management system in years.

Minister of Education Maruf Tunji Alausa announced the rollout, describing it as a milestone in building an education system that can track learners from classroom to career. "By assigning every learner a unique number, we are building a structure that supports each child's journey from classroom to career, while ensuring that no one is left behind," he said.

Each Learner Identification Number is designed to stay with a student permanently, capturing key data including their school, location, and academic history. The system is built on the Digitised National Education Management Information System, which links students to verified schools assigned their own unique identification codes. Crucially, the LIN travels with a student even if they transfer schools, enabling continuous tracking of academic progress without the data gaps that have historically made Nigeria's education statistics unreliable.

Beyond examination administration, the system is expected to serve as a tool for identifying out of school children, monitoring dropout patterns, and enabling targeted government interventions in communities where learning gaps are most acute. The platform is described as fully digital and publicly accessible.

The Ministry confirmed that the next phase of the initiative will extend coverage to all learners across both public and private schools nationwide, and called on stakeholders to support full implementation.

For the 1.9 million candidates who now carry a LIN into their 2026 examinations, the immediate effect is a stronger verification framework that makes impersonation significantly harder. For the Nigerian education system as a whole, it is the beginning of a data infrastructure that has been missing for far too long.