By Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
Kaduna State has received national recognition for its progress in digital education management as the Federal Government officially launched the Digital National Education Management Information System (D-NEMIS), a platform designed to strengthen education planning through accurate, real-time data.
The recognition came during the inauguration of state D-NEMIS coordination teams in Abuja, where education stakeholders, development partners, state commissioners of education, SUBEB chairmen, teachers’ representatives, and civil society organisations gathered to unveil the new digital platform.
President of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Audu Titus Amba, praised Kaduna State for its commitment to data-driven education governance.
He said Kaduna had become a leading example of digital transformation in the education sector, attributing the progress to collaboration between the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the NUT.
According to Amba, Kaduna’s SUBEB leadership has embraced digital innovation, urging other states to strengthen partnerships with their NUT chapters to improve education administration.
Minister of Education, Dr. Maroof Tunji Alausa, said the D-NEMIS platform would replace the traditional manual school census with a real-time digital system that enables schools to upload data directly.
He said the initiative would support evidence-based policymaking, improve planning, guide resource allocation, and strengthen monitoring across the education sector.
“The future of education is not guesswork. It is data, it is evidence, it is action,” the minister said.
Alausa highlighted the country’s education data challenges, noting that although about 38 million learners have been captured on the platform, significant enrolment declines occur between primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary education.
He attributed part of the challenge to inadequate infrastructure, explaining that Nigeria has about 90,000 public primary schools compared to approximately 15,000 junior secondary schools.
The minister also identified structural issues within the school system, including the separation of junior and senior secondary school administration, which he said contributes to overcrowding in junior secondary schools while leaving some senior secondary facilities underutilised.
He disclosed that six modules have been developed or are under implementation on the D-NEMIS platform, covering learner transitions, school infrastructure, teacher management, safe schools, out-of-school children, and national learning assessments.
According to him, Nigeria has also commenced its first national learning assessment in five years, with future assessments scheduled to take place every three years.
Development partners, including UNICEF, the World Bank, the European Union, Norway, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and HISP at the University of Oslo, supported the development of the platform.
UNICEF Country Representative Wafaa Saeed Abdelatef described the initiative as a major step towards ensuring every child is captured within Nigeria’s education system, enabling early identification of learners at risk of dropping out.
The Federal Government also announced measures to safeguard data privacy, with the National Bureau of Statistics supporting data validation while the National Data Protection Commission works with the D-NEMIS team to protect millions of learner records expected to be stored on the platform.
NUT President Amba pledged the union’s support for the successful implementation of the initiative, encouraging state coordination teams to ensure professionalism, transparency, and effective collaboration with education authorities.
Director of Basic Education at the Federal Ministry of Education, Mrs. Folake Olatunji-David, described the platform as a unified national system for education data management, saying states would play a central role in ensuring the accuracy and integrity of education statistics.
She urged state coordination teams to uphold high standards of data collection, stressing that reliable information is essential for improving education outcomes.
The Federal Government said the initiative enjoys the support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and now has a dedicated budget line.
Officials added that states such as Kaduna and Borno have already made significant progress in submitting their 2026 education census data.
The ministry expressed confidence that nationwide implementation of the digital platform would significantly improve education planning and accountability, while encouraging private schools to participate by uploading their data without concerns about additional taxation.
