UNICEF Trains Enugu Education Officers on Data Collection

To enhance the educational system in Nigeria, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has trained 50 government education officers in Enugu State, southeast Nigeria.

This initiative aims to improve the quality of data and evidence available for formulating effective policies and attracting targeted investments in the state.

The training was held in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. Agatha Nzeribe, UNICEF Education Specialist, explained that Enugu is the only state in Southern Nigeria chosen to conduct the digital annual school census data collection and the training is amid to enhance their skills in data collection, management, and analysis, as well as to improve the quality and reliability of educational data for better planning and policy-making.

“So, what we are doing here right now is training 50 education management information system (EMIS) officers from the state level and the local government level. At the end of this week, they will have acquired the necessary skills on how to use the DHS tool to collect data and upload it.

“Then we’ll go to the local governments, we are going to work in clusters. And the focus is that every school, every primary school, public primary, private primary, secondary, public, private, will be captured on GPRS. And the requisite data about the school will be collected.

Nzeribe said that with appropriate data, the school dropout problem among pupils would be reduced.

“Data speaks, if you know what to do with it. So you use it to plan. We’re looking at zero out of school. Every child, no child left behind. That’s what, that’s who we are. We are for every child. Whether he is in a rural area, whether he’s having any disability, whether he’s from a socioeconomic background that doesn’t help him, we’re here to support the states achieve all, full enrollment, and completion”. She said.

Ndubueze Mbah, the commissioner for Education in Enugu State, in his submission, said that the training was critical to the state because they need to have a systematic way to report to development agencies, partners, and the federal government their educational reform gains.

He urged the participants to put in their best and garner the knowledge, as their role is very crucial to data collection and analysis as related to schools, teachers, students, and other aspects of the education system in Enugu.

“We need these 50 Enugu State EMIS officers to understand the best practices on data collection, data analysis, and data management to enable us to be able to properly document our process of educational reform.

“And be able to explain to our development agency partners what it is exactly that we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and what we are achieving. So that we can invite and earn more support to do more.” Mbah said.