FG to overhaul education sector, enrol 20 million out-of-school children

Collins Agwam With the number of Nigeria’s out-of-school children getting increasingly high, President Bola Tinubu has approved the commencement of the DOTS project to overhaul the education sector and increase enrolment to secure the academic security of the nation‘s children. The Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Tanko Sununu, made this known on Friday in Shabu, a suburb of Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, while performing the ground-breaking foundation laying ceremony of the National Examinations Council offices of Nasarawa, Abia, Sokoto, Taraba, Jigawa, Lagos, and River States. PUNCH Healthwise reports that DOTS is an acronym representing: Data Repository, Out-of-School Children’s Education, Teacher Training and Development, and Skill Development and Acquisition.

The minister said the DOTS project was meant to tackle the paucity of coordinated, verifiable, and authentic data in all aspects of the education sector in Nigeria. Sununu further explained that the new initiative would enable the Federal 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. He said, “Out-of-school children represent a major thematic area in the eight points agenda of President Bola Tinubu, with a priority focus on social welfare, health and education.

“Mr President is of the belief that the over 20 million out-o.