The Federal Government has unveiled plans to abolish the Junior Secondary School Common Entrance Examination and replace it with a Learner Identification Number aimed at monitoring pupils throughout their educational progression.
Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, made this known during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Saturday.
The minister explained that the proposed changes are designed to expand access to education and enhance the ability to monitor pupils nationwide.
He stated that the common entrance examination would gradually be discontinued and substituted with a more holistic 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 noted that the reform is expected to tackle challenges associated with the transition from primary to secondary education, particularly the high number of pupils who do not advance.
Citing available data, the minister said millions of children in public primary schools fail to continue into 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 significant access gap and called on state governments to increase school infrastructure.
“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, Alausa disclosed that the government would implement a Learner Identification Number assigned to pupils from the primary 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 initiative would allow authorities to monitor students’ academic journey 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 revealed that efforts are underway to revive the school feeding programme as part of strategies to boost enrolment in public schools, noting that the programme may be moved to the Federal Ministry of Education for more effective oversight.
The proposed measures are part of broader government efforts to strengthen the education sector, improve retention, and ensure more Nigerian children complete basic schooling.
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