President Bola Tinubu has approved system-wide policies to comprehensively overhaul the education sector to improve learning in the country.

The approved policies are captured as DOTS, an acronym representing Data Repository, Out-of-School Children Education, Teacher Training and Development, and Skill Development and Acquisition.

This was contained in a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, on Thursday, April 18, 2024.

Ngelale noted that currently, there is a paucity of coordinated, verifiable, and authentic data on all aspects of the education sector in Nigeria, which is critical for planning.

He said: “Consequently, the President has approved the conduct of an extensive census of the following:

“All schools in Nigeria 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.”

The presidential spokesman stated that this information will guide federal and state interventions for teachers’ training and development as well as overall support.

Ngelale said it will 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.

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He added: “There will be a dedicated portal/dashboard in the Federal Ministry of Education, offices of state governors, and local government chairpersons, which will host and disseminate this information for the federal government, states, and local governments 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, Ngelale said the Federal Ministry of Education is already implementing the government’s policy through the activities of four of its agencies.

He said already, there are about two million beneficiaries, noting that the system-wide policy will further enhance the education and training of the nation’s out-of-school children.

He added that 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 digitization to teachers and learners at all levels of education,” the presidential spokesman said.

Ngelale further disclosed that President Tinubu has also approved the National Skills Framework designed to provide the appropriate skills for each level of education.

This, he said, 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.

Ngelale added: “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.

“It is expected that once fully implemented, these programmes will succeed in resetting learning and connecting the ‘DOTS’ for significant improvement of the overall education system in Nigeria, in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.”

The Star