By Ibrahim Hassan-Wuyo

Kaduna State has been singled out for commendation as the Federal Government launched the Digital National Education Management Information System (D-NEMIS), a technology-driven platform designed to eliminate inaccurate education statistics and strengthen planning through real-time data.

The commendation came from the President of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, Comrade Audu Titus Amba, during the official unveiling of the platform and inauguration of state NEMIS coordination teams in Abuja.

Amba described Kaduna as a leading example of data-driven education governance, attributing the state’s progress to its embrace of digital innovation.

“Please permit me to specifically appreciate Kaduna State, where I am from,” he said.

“The information we’ve received is that my state is making progress. My SUBEB chairman is one of the youngest in the Federal Republic of Nigeria and is digitally driven. That is why Kaduna is number one, and we will continue to be number one.”

He challenged commissioners of education and SUBEB chairmen across the country to strengthen collaboration with state chapters of the NUT to improve education data management.

The event brought together the Minister of Education, Dr. Maroof Tunji Alausa, commissioners of education, SUBEB chairmen, development partners, teachers and civil society organisations to formally unveil the platform, which replaces the country’s manual education data collection system.

Speaking at the event, Alausa said the era of making education policies based on assumptions must come to an end.

“The future of education is not guesswork. It is data, it is evidence, it is action,” the minister said, urging states to ensure timely and accurate school-level data entry for effective planning, resource allocation and monitoring.

He disclosed that although about 38 million learners have been captured on the platform, the data revealed significant losses at transition stages within the education system.

According to him, about 24 million children are enrolled in primary and Islamiyya schools, but the figure falls to around five million in Junior Secondary School One and about 4.2 million at the senior secondary level.

He attributed the gap largely to inadequate infrastructure, noting that Nigeria has about 90,000 public primary schools compared to only 15,000 junior secondary schools, creating a one-to-eight ratio.

Alausa also criticised the separation of junior and senior secondary school administration, describing the arrangement as a major contributor to overcrowded junior secondary classrooms and underutilised senior secondary facilities.

“From data available to us, disarticulation has failed our education system,” he said, adding that the issue would be discussed at the next National Council on Education meeting.

The minister explained that D-NEMIS would provide near real-time school data through six operational modules covering learner transition, infrastructure, safe schools, teachers, out-of-school children and national learning assessment.

He also announced that Nigeria’s first national learning assessment in five years commenced two days earlier and would now be conducted every three years with funding from UBEC.

Alausa acknowledged the support of development partners, including UNICEF, the World Bank, the European Union, Norway, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), as well as HISP at the University of Oslo.

He commended UNICEF for accelerating the implementation timeline and noted that the country’s education data transformation had gained international recognition.

UNICEF Country Representative, Wafaa Saeed Abdelatef, said the platform would ensure that every child is accounted for while providing early warning mechanisms for school dropouts.

She described Nigeria’s digital education data initiative as one of Africa’s leading innovations showcased in Oslo.

On data protection, Alausa said the National Bureau of Statistics had deployed statisticians to strengthen data validation, while the National Data Protection Commission would work with the D-NEMIS team to safeguard what is expected to become a database containing between 65 million and 70 million learner records.

Amba pledged the support of the NUT towards ensuring credible data collection, validation and utilisation, describing an effective education management information system as essential to delivering quality education.

He urged state coordination teams to discharge their responsibilities with professionalism, transparency and dedication.

Also speaking, the Director of Basic Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Mrs. Folake Olatunji-David, described the launch as the institutionalisation of a unified and interoperable education data platform.

“You are the custodians of truth in our sector. The days of estimates and guesswork must end, and they must end with you,” she told the state teams.

Officials expressed optimism that with dedicated funding from the Federal Government and improved state participation—including strong returns already recorded from Kaduna and Borno—the country’s education data system would become fully operational from 2027.

The launch underscored the Federal Government’s resolve to shift Nigeria’s education sector from manual reporting to a digital, evidence-based accountability system, with Kaduna presented as a leading example of successful implementation.