Alausa demands accountability, charges NESRI to deliver reforms

By Mariam Abeeb

The  Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, has charged coordinators and officials responsible for the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI) deliverables to continue to take full ownership of their assignments, sustain the momentum of ongoing reforms and ensure that outstanding commitments are translated into measurable results across Nigeria’s education sector.

Dr. Alausa gave the charge at the Ministerial Deliverables Meeting on NESRI in Abuja, where officials conducted a six-month review of progress since the last NESRI retreat held in February and agreed on concrete actions to strengthen implementation of the education reform agenda.

The meeting focused on four key areas: verification of completed deliverables, review of pending tasks and the bottlenecks delaying them, establishment of timelines for outstanding deliverables, and consideration of additional deliverables and emerging priorities.

As part of the review, officials examined assignments reported as completed to determine whether they had achieved their full scope and could genuinely be closed out.

The exercise was designed to ensure that deliverables are not regarded as completed merely because activities have commenced or partial milestones have been achieved.

The meeting also scrutinised outstanding tasks, with programme coordinators and responsible officials required to identify the specific bottlenecks preventing completion and determine practical measures for resolving them.

To strengthen accountability, realistic completion timelines were to be established for outstanding deliverables, with the officials responsible for each assignment expected to take ownership of implementation and remain accountable for agreed targets.

The meeting further provided an opportunity to consider additional deliverables and emerging priorities requiring the Ministry’s attention as it continues to implement reforms under NESRI.