Tinubu endorses 3 frameworks to educate Nigeria's out-of-school children

The framework would comprehensively overhaul the education sector to improve learning and skill development, increase enrolment and ensure the academic security of the nation’s children.

Chief Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, made this known in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

He said that the approved policies are captured as DOTS, an acronym for Data Repository, Out-of-School Children Education, Teacher Training & Development, and Skill Development & Acquisition.

On data repository, Tinubu approved the conduct of an extensive census to address the current paucity of coordinated, verifiable, and authentic data on the education sector in Nigeria.

Ngelale said this would involve data on all schools from primary to tertiary level, their conditions and live-in facilities, proximity to one another, educational infrastructure, etc.

“All teachers in Nigeria, their qualifications, training support received, etc. All pupils and students in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions, gender, exam grades, etc.”

Ngelale said this information would guide federal and state interventions for teachers’ training and development as well as overall support.

He said it would also provide data on gender ratio (boys and girls), their specific learning needs, and who is in school or who has dropped out based on daily monitoring with year-by-year reporting.

He said the dissemination of this information would be done through a dedicated portal/dashboard in the Federal Ministry of Education, offices of state governors, and local government chairpersons to monitor in real-time.

“This new data tracking architecture will enable the government to track the progress of students, thus having a clear data-driven mechanism for interventions, especially concerning out-of-school children, girls, and those with specific learning disabilities, among others.”

On the out-of-school children’s education and training, he said the Federal Ministry of Education is already implementing the government’s policy through the activities of four of its agencies. Already, there are about two million beneficiaries, adding that the system-wide policy would further enhance the education and training of the nation’s out-of-school children.

On the Teachers’ development and support, he said: “Under this programme, the Federal Ministry of Education will support and train teachers in digital skills to facilitate the use of technology in classrooms". This is expected to bring technology and digitisation to teachers and learners at all levels of education.

The National Skill Framework aims to enhance skill diversity in the education sector to effectively equip Nigerian students with the requisite skills, knowledge, and values to become functional and productive members of society.

“The framework is designed to provide the appropriate skills for each level of education that will result in the empowering of generations of Nigerians with the required aptitude for the evolving needs of the global economy of the 21st century.

“This framework is expected to address skill-gaps, quality of education, and unemployment concerns as students will acquire certain skill sets, in addition to general knowledge.”

Ngelale said that once fully implemented, these programmes would succeed in resetting learning and connecting the "DOTS" for improvement of the overall education system.