In 2022, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) conducted the National Personnel Audit(NPA). It was a nationwide headcount of all basic education schools, pupils, and teachers in Nigeria. The outcome spoke a great deal about the level of dropouts witnessed from primary to junior secondary, and the structural gaps holding the system back.
UBEC, according to the data recorded 171,027 UBE schools nationwide with 79,775 public and 91,252 private. But the breakdown reveals the bottleneck: there were 131,377 primary schools compared to just 38,217 junior secondary schools. That is roughly 3 primary schools for every 1 JSS. For Early Childhood Care, Development and Education (ECCDE), the base was even thinner: only 1,433 ECCDE schools.
The enrolment numbers confirm the challenge. According to UBEC 2022 data, total basic education enrolment stood at 47,010,008 pupils. Of that, 31,771,916 were in primary schools, but only 8,003,397 made it to junior secondary. That leaves a gap of 23,768,519 pupils between primary and JSS in that year alone; roughly 4 pupils in primary for every 1 in JSS. The record also showed that Public schools bore the weight; 33,315,654 pupils were in public schools versus 13,694,354 in private schools.
The data also showed that the system was stretched. Primary schools had 915,593 staff while the Junior secondary schools had 416,291 staff.
While this data is four years old and would be said to have been outdated, there are indications that the trend has continued.
Recently the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, confirmed this at the launch of Digitalized Nigeria Education Management Information System (DNEMIS) last week.
He noted evidence showing a huge gap between the number of primary schools and junior secondary schools nationwide, leaving millions of children unable to progress.
“We have 20 million dropouts from primary school to junior secondary school. Where are those students? We also found we have 80,000 public primary schools and only about 15,000 junior secondary schools. That’s a one-to-eight ratio,” he said.
According to him, the shortage of junior secondary schools has resulted in severe overcrowding while many senior secondary schools remain underutilised.
These are worrisome trends that the minister said will be tackled with accurate education data. Perhaps, that would explain the reason for the launch of the DNEMIS.
According to the minister, for the first time in 60 years, Nigeria is moving its annual school census off paper and onto phones.
The platform is designed to collect data in real time, online and offline, from all 240,000 schools in the country; pre-primary to technical, public and private.
At the launch, the Minister described DNEMIS as the “single source of truth” for education data.
“What is DNEMIS? For me, it is the Single Source of Truth of Data Collection. The annual school census data collection of all the schools in the country…We have also introduced a newly learner identification number…
“Also, we’ve expanded to out-of-school children as well, with another module on that. And we’re also collecting data on infrastructures. The number of classrooms available in each of the schools, number of computers, number of WASH facilities, number of laboratories,” he said.
He explained that every school has been geotagged and every student will get a unique 16-digit Learner ID linked to NIN.
“That number tracks the student from the primary school to junior secondary school, senior secondary school, into university level… Once they drop out, we can identify quickly why they’re dropping out and then intervene and get them back to school,” he noted.
The Minister added that unlike the old paper system that took two years, DNEMIS will give “almost real-time availability of those data” for planning at state and LGA levels.
For sustainability, Alausa said government has committed first-line charge funding to sustain it, with UNICEF supporting its development.
“We want this data to impact the use, to help the state commissioners, the supervisors to plan and address their governance accordingly, where they need to mobilise resources. So that’s one big part of the annual school data and census collection,” he noted.
He was optimistic that with the involvement of National Bureau of Statistics, the data will be accurate and reliable.
Confirming the minister’s assurance, the Director-General of the National Bureau of Statistics, Prince Semiu Adeyemi Adeniran, said the NBS will serve as independent verifier to guarantee quality.
“When an NBS stamp is on any data, the quality is assured for that data. And that is what we have promised the Honourable Minister we will be doing to support DNEMIS,” he noted.
He said the bureau will link DNEMIS to its Integrated System of Administrative Statistics through an API and use household surveys to validate out-of-school numbers.
“We are already working with the Federal Ministry of Education to have mapping of out-of-school children through one of our household surveys, so that we can know where they are, how many are there… I will be using this to validate and cross-check what data we are going to be having from the DNEMIS,” he explained.
The ministry had also involved international partners. The Chief of Education at UNICEF Nigeria, Vanessa Lee, said the platform matters because it serves the most vulnerable.
“UNICEF is delighted to partner with the Honourable Minister… because our work is central to children having access to quality education. We want to see that every child can achieve their rights to education and also that they can achieve the dreams that they have,” she said.
Also speaking, the Head of Cooperation at the European Union Delegation to Nigeria, Mr. Massimo De Luca, said the EU is backing DNEMIS under its Global Gateway strategy.
“Data is at the centre of transformation for the future… We are really very keen in ensuring that transformation comes with accountability and with democratic participation. We work at federal level. We work at state level, especially in Kano, Sokoto, and Jigawa.”
UBEC 2022 gave Nigeria the last paper picture: 3 primary schools for every JSS, 31.7m pupils in primary against 8m in JSS, and millions lost in between. DNEMIS is the government’s bet that real-time, geotagged data with learner IDs can close that gap.
The Minister put it to citizens directly at the launch, “You can now go and look at all the data at the local government level, at the state level. Challenge us to deliver for you.”
Whether states use the data to build more JSS, hire teachers, and track dropouts will determine if DNEMIS becomes more than another platform, and if the next audit finally shows fewer children lost in the pipeline.
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