We Will Address Out-Of-School Issues With ‘DOTS’ – President Tinubu

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has said his administration is committed to addressing the menace of Out-of-School children across Nigeria.

The Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Tanko Sununu, who represented Tinubu at the ground-breaking and foundation-laying ceremony of National Examination Council (NECO) building, in Lafia, said the federal government has commenced a data-driven process to ensure that all out-of-school children return to school.

The event which took place in Nasarawa State, was also performed simultaneously in Rivers State, Sokoto State, Abia State, Jigawa State, Lagos State and Taraba State, on Friday.

Tanko Sununu said the Ministry of Education got approval from President Tinubu on its ‘DOTS’ programme which will be the guiding policy for addressing the out-of-school children issues.

According to the Minister of State for Education “D” in ‘DOTS’ stood for ” Data Depository“, “O” stood for “Out-of-School Children“, “T” stood for “Teachers” and “S” stood for “Skills“.

He said the DOTS policy would be implemented along with constitutional bodies that will be given the mandate of monitoring and tracking population in Nigeria.

Sununu added that DOTS would be used to get data of out-of-school children, all schools in Nigeria from kindergarten to tertiary institutions, and teachers.

He assured that with implementation of DOTS, data on enrollment, value retention and progress of all students from secondary to tertiary level would be collated and used in planning.

“The data will include all the data of schools we have in Nigeria right from kindergarten to tertiary institutions both private and public. We generate data on our students right also from kindergarten to tertiary level.

“We will do that with relevant constitutional bodies that are given mandate for monitoring and tracking population in Nigeria. This will give us accurate number of enrollment, accurate value retention in schools and accurate value of progression from secondary school to tertiary level of education.”

The Registrar/ Chief Executive Prof. Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi, in an address, thanked the federal government for its support in building offices across the nation for the exam body.

Professor Wushishi disclosed that the examination body across the nations has been using rented buildings as offices.