Government moves to boost school enrolment, reduces out-of -school children

As part of measures to reduce the number of out-of-school children, the Federal Capital Territory [FCT] administration has concluded plans to use credible databases for increased school enrolment.

In particular, the administration through its Education Management Information Service (EMIS) committee is set to commence enumeration exercise of all schools across the Territory.

The Guardian gathered that the exercise expected to begin with public schools will help to produce credible and valid data that could be used for the formulation of policies and enhance the quality of education.

“With this exercise, it will be easy to get the actual number of children that are not in school and the government can now move in and get those students into school for proper enrolment.’’

Umar Marafa, the director of administration and finance said the exercise would boost proper planning and ensure quality educational deliverables in the territory.

“Over the years, the government has realised that the available data for educational planning was defective hence the need to make better arrangement for proper data collection.”

On his part, Dr. Mohammed Sani Ladan said, “We are rubbing minds to see how we can have a very clear school census this time around. We will all go back to our departments and agencies to sensitise others so that by the time the census commences, we won’t have issues.”

Deputy director, Steven Oyelola, decried the non-cooperation of the private schools in the past exercise.

He said enumerators have already been selected from all concerned agencies for the private school as well at from the local government areas to participate in the exercise.