FG plans to end common entrance, introduce learner ID system
The Federal Government has unveiled plans to abolish the Junior Secondary School Common Entrance Examination and replace it with a Learner Identification Number designed to monitor students from their early years in school through their academic progression.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, made this known during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Saturday.
According to reports, the minister said the proposed changes are part of broader reforms aimed at expanding access to education and strengthening the monitoring of pupils nationwide.
He explained that the common entrance examination would gradually be discontinued and substituted with a more detailed assessment 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 added that the initiative is intended to close gaps in the transition from primary to secondary education, particularly the significant number of pupils who do not advance to the next stage.
Citing available data, the minister revealed that although millions of children are enrolled in public primary schools, only a small proportion continue to junior secondary education.
“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 expand infrastructure by building 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 tracking and accountability, the minister disclosed that the government will introduce a Learner Identification Number assigned to each pupil 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 noted that the system would help authorities monitor students’ progress and identify cases where learners drop out of school.
“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 revealed that steps are being taken to revive the school feeding programme as part of efforts to boost enrolment in public schools, adding that the initiative may be transferred to the Federal Ministry of Education for more effective supervision.
