The Federal Government has moved to abolish the long-standing Junior Secondary School Common Entrance Examination. In a major shake-up of the nation’s schooling, officials will instead introduce a Learner Identification Number (LIN) to track every child’s academic journey from primary one.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, revealed these sweeping reforms during a press briefing in Lagos on Saturday. The initiative aims to fix a broken transition system where millions of children currently vanish from the school rolls after primary education.
From Exams to Continuous Assessment
Under the new plan, the high-pressure entry exam will be phased out. It will be replaced by a more holistic tracking method that follows a student regardless of where they study.
The Minister explained: “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.”
The “Missing” 20 Million: A Crisis of Access
Dr Alausa provided sobering data to justify the reform. While Nigeria boasts over 50,000 public primary schools with 23 million pupils, the drop-off rate at the secondary level is catastrophic.
“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,” Alausa noted. “Then the question is, where are the about 20 million not enrolled in our public secondary schools?”
The Minister dismissed the idea that private institutions are absorbing these children. Instead, he pointed to a dire lack of infrastructure. He has already engaged the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, urging state governments to build more classrooms to accommodate the overflow.
How the Learner Identification Number Works
The LIN will act as a digital footprint for every Nigerian child. This unique code stays with the pupil from their first day of primary school through to graduation.
“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,” Alausa explained.
This data-driven approach allows the government to spot exactly where the system fails. “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,” the Minister added.
Reviving School Feeding
To further boost enrolment, the government plans to revive the national school feeding programme. There are discussions to move the initiative directly under the Ministry of Education to ensure better monitoring and transparency. These reforms represent a fundamental shift towards ensuring that more Nigerian children actually complete their basic education.
