FG uses mobile tech to conduct school census

The Federal Government has said mobile technology would be used to gather data from schools during the conduct of the 2018/19 Annual School Census (ASC) nationwide.

Minister of Education Adamu Adamu stated this at the flag-off of the 2018/2019 ASC exercise with the theme: “Mobile Technology: A Veritable Tool for Enhancing the Generation of Credible, Reliable and Timely Education Data,” yesterday in Abuja.

He said the government has planned to use android tablets to gather data from schools during the conduct of the 2018/2019 ASC and called on all the head teachers and principals to explore the maximum use of mobile technology. `

“It is my hope that this year’s ASC exercise will provide reliable and timely data so as to ensure proper planning, management and administration of education in Nigeria for enhanced learning and productivity.”

He said government had conducted geo-positioning of schools in some states which would help in getting the exact and accurate number of schools which will invariably validate the ASC data. He said schools in Imo, Edo, Ondo, Kogi and Taraba states at both basic and post basic levels have already been mapped and placed in the website www.nemis.gov.ng for accessibility by all. The basic schools in the states have been mapped by the personnel audit exercise and it was expected that states would key into this exercise so as to map the remaining post basic schools, he said.

According to him, ASC was the simultaneous commencement of the enumeration of all schools, pupils, teachers and facilities in the basic and post basic school levels and the introduction of a mobile technology to generate credible, reliable and timely data from the remote site/school in the 36 states and the FCT, for enhanced educational planning and research, decision-making, national and global reporting.

He said the ‘Nigeria Digest of Education Statistics of 2016 – 2017has been published while that of 2017/2018 was undergoing final processing. “With this, we have been able to close the data gap and report Nigeria Education Data to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) for global comparison, decision making and research,” he said.