By Amah
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The Federal Government has announced plans to introduce a nationwide Learner Identification Number (LIN) for pupils, alongside a major policy shift to phase out the traditional Junior Secondary School (JSS) entrance examination.
The initiative, spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Education, is designed to digitally track students from primary school through their academic journey, while improving retention and transition rates across Nigeria’s education system.
Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed the reforms during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, highlighting alarming gaps in student progression within the public school system.
According to the minister, Nigeria currently has over 50,000 public primary schools with more than 23 million pupils. However, only about 3 million transition into public junior secondary schools, leaving nearly 20 million children unaccounted for.
“We cannot assume private schools are absorbing all of them. The reality is that access remains a major challenge,” Alausa said.
Under the new policy, every pupil will be assigned a unique Learner Identification Number from primary school level. The number will remain with the student throughout their education, regardless of transfers between schools or states.
The government says the LIN system will enable authorities to monitor attendance, progression, and dropouts more effectively.
“If a child is expected to be in JSS1 and is not there, we will be able to track and determine why,” the minister explained.
In a sweeping reform, the government also confirmed that the widely used common entrance examination for admission into junior secondary schools will be scrapped.
It will be replaced with a Continuous Assessment (CA) model, which evaluates pupils based on their academic performance from Primary 1 onward.
Officials say the CA records will follow students wherever they go, ensuring a more holistic and consistent evaluation process rather than relying on a single examination.
To tackle the root cause of low transition rates, the Federal Government is engaging with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to expand access by building more schools across states.
In addition, authorities are working to revive the national school feeding programme, as part of efforts to boost enrollment and keep children in school.
The reforms signal a major shift in Nigeria’s education policy, with a focus on data-driven tracking, inclusive access, and long-term student development.
