FG moves to scrap common entrance, introduce learner ID to track pupils’ academic journey

The Federal Government has unveiled plans to phase out the Junior Secondary School Common Entrance Examination and introduce a learner identification number to monitor pupils throughout their academic journey.

Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Saturday, explaining that the reforms are aimed at improving access to education and strengthening student tracking nationwide.

He said the common entrance examination would be replaced with a Continuous Assessment (CA) system that reflects a pupil’s academic performance from the early years of schooling.

“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,” he said.

Alausa noted that the reform is also designed to address gaps in the transition from primary to secondary education, particularly the significant number of pupils who do not progress beyond the primary level.

“We have over 50,000 public primary schools in the country with over 23 million pupils. However, 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, then the question is, where are the about 20 million not enrolled in our public secondary schools?” he queried.

He attributed the situation largely to limited access to schools, stressing the need for state governments to expand educational infrastructure.

“It is obvious that we cannot say our private schools accommodate all of them. The issue is simply lack of access and we are working on that. There is need to build more schools and I have met the Nigerian Governors’ Forum over that. State governments need to build more schools to accommodate more pupils and students,” he said.

To strengthen monitoring, the minister said the government would introduce a Learner Identification Number assigned to each pupil from the primary school level, ensuring continuity regardless of school transfers.

“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,” he explained.

According to him, the system would help authorities track students’ progress and identify those who drop out of school, while also supporting broader reforms such as the planned revival of the school feeding programme to boost enrolment and retention.