Nigeria's Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has announced a reform of the country's basic education system, unveiling plans to phase out the common entrance examination and replace it with a Continuous Assessment model. The disclosure was made during a media briefing in Lagos.
The new framework is aimed at improving access, continuity, and accountability in the education sector. Under it, a pupil's academic record will be built progressively from primary one and will follow them throughout their schooling journey, even across different institutions.
The minister anchored the urgency of the reform in deeply troubling statistics. Despite more than 23 million pupils enrolled across over 50,000 public primary schools nationwide, only a fraction successfully transition into junior secondary school, leaving an alarming number of children completely unaccounted for within the system.
Alausa described this as a clear indication of limited access. He called on state governments to urgently expand infrastructure by constructing more schools, warning that existing facilities are unable to absorb the country's growing population of learners.
Central to the reform is the introduction of a Learner Identification Number, a unique ID assigned to every pupil. Authorities will use it to monitor academic progression in real time and detect early signs of dropout. "With this system, if a child fails to transition to the next level, we will know and be able to intervene," the minister said.
Alausa also revealed plans to revitalise the school feeding programme, targeting enrolment growth and dropout reduction, particularly among children from low income households. He described the full package of reforms as a wider national strategy to fortify Nigeria's education system and ensure that significantly more children complete their basic schooling.
