The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) on Monday said it was set to conduct a National Assessment of Learning Achievement in Basic Education (NALABE) in all states and the FCT
The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr Hamid Bobboyi who disclosed this during a media dialogue on the 2017 NALABE in Abuja said the exercise would be held from November 22 to 24, 2017.
According to him, 1,080 primary schools and 432 junior secondary schools will constitute the school sample. He said that the objective of the assessment was to use quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the efficiency and quality of performance of Primary, Junior Secondary school pupils and students in Nigeria.
He added that this would enable the tracking of standards of education at the basic level.
“The NALABE was conducted by the commission in 2001, 2003, 2006 and 2011, respectively. The results were used to gauge the state of basic education and to proffer solutions to some of the constraints and challenges being faced in this critical sub-sector.
“The November 2017 has been scheduled for the 5th edition of the assessment. Assessment of learners’ achievements is very crucial to the implementation of basic education programme. It exposes learners’ performance in curricular delivery and impact of intervening variables,” he added.
Bobboyi said that six Local Government Education authorities (LGEA) were selected through simple random sampling techniques in each of the 36 states and the FCT.
He said that the board selected five primary schools in each LGEA comprising two urban, two rural and one private school.
Bobboyi noted that 20 pupils from Primary 5 and 6 would participate in the study in each selected school.
He added that the head teachers of the sampled school and teachers of the selected Primary 5 and 6 classes would also participate. “At this level, the samples are to consist of 216 LGEA’s, 1,080 Primary schools, 1,080 head teachers, 2,160 teachers, 43,200 pupils and 25,920 parents at the Primary level. And at the Junior Secondary school level 17,280 students drawn from JSS 2 and 3; 12,960 parents; 432 Principals and 1,728 teachers will participate in the study.”
Bobboyi said the board would use eight instruments for data collection at the primary level and eight at the secondary level.
The UBEC boss listed these to include achievements Test in English Studies, Mathematics, Basic Science and Technology as well as Social Studies.
Others are Learners’ Questionnaire, Teachers’ Questionnaire, Head teachers’ Questionnaire and Parents’ Questionnaire. He assured that all state governments and stakeholders were being carried along in the exercise, adding, ”each state government needs to know the problems of basic education and how to solve them in their states’’.
The Executive Secretary said 1,512 field officers would be involved in the test administration; 400 UBEC staff, 216 SUBEBs staff and 896 NYSC members.
He said that the commission would continue with the International standard of conducting the test every two years if resources were available.
“There are various exercises to be undertaken in the education sector because of its importance for planning in the country.
“We hope this exercise will give us the evidence to answer the question of if these children are actually learning and look at the disparities in the different zones across the country’’. (NAN)
