The Federal Government has revealed plans to abolish the Junior Secondary School Common Entrance Examination and introduce a Learner Identification Number to monitor pupils from primary school throughout their education.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, made this known during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Saturday.
According to Tribune, the minister said the reforms are designed to expand access to education and improve the tracking of pupils nationwide.
He explained that the common entrance exam would gradually be phased out and replaced with a broader evaluation approach.
He said, “It will be replaced by Continuous Assessment, CA. The CA will reflect the performance of the pupil from primary one and even if a pupil is transferring from one school to another, he will take it along to his new school.”
Alausa further stated that the new approach would help close gaps in the transition from primary to secondary school, especially considering the high number of pupils who do not advance.
Providing statistics, he noted that although millions of pupils are enrolled in public primary schools, only a fraction proceed to the secondary level.
“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?” he queried.
He stressed that the figures highlight a serious access challenge and called on state governments to build more schools.
“It is obvious that we cannot say our private schools accommodate all of them. 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 said.
To improve monitoring, the minister said the government would introduce the Learner Identification Number starting from the primary school level.
“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,” he explained.
He added that the system would make it easier to track students’ progress and identify those who drop out.
“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,” Alausa said.
The minister also disclosed that efforts are underway to revive the school feeding programme to boost enrolment in public schools, noting that it may be transferred to the Federal Ministry of Education for better oversight.
He added that the reforms are part of wider government efforts to strengthen the education sector, improve retention rates, and ensure more children complete basic education.