Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has expressed satisfaction over the conduct of the ongoing National Assessment of Learning Achievement in Basic Education (NALABE), taking place all over the country.
Dr Hamid Boboye, the Executive Secretary of UBEC disclosed the development to newsmen in Abuja on Thursday, while on a tour of schools in the nation’s capital to access compliance to the assessment, a program carried out by UBEC every three years to gauge the system of basic education in terms of standard and quality through testing of learners in four core subjects.
Boboye said; “We are very happy with what we have seen, the various schools we have visited we went to Lugbe, both sides of Lugbe, we are here in Asokoro, I think the conduct has been quite alright.
“The whole idea is to sample some schools in each and every location in Nigeria to determine, to access learning, our children going to school are they learning? I think we don’t want someone to come and tell us whether they are doing better or not, the whole idea is to monitor ourselves.
“Interestingly, this is one of the largest assessments of learning in this part of the world, we are very glad that we have been able to get the assistance of UNICEF in that in that regard, it is a partnership that started much earlier, that fortunately led to what we are seeing. We are conducting this exam in every local, and so far what we have seen in Abuja is an indication of how successful we expect the entire exercise to be in the rest of the country.
“It is impressive exercise, it allows both the State and the Federal governments to access first and foremost, what it has gotten in terms of the results of the exercise and to put in the corrective measures, it is always strategic to allow whatever corrective measures that you put in to begin to attraction before you come back and say you want to measure again.
“It doesn’t make sense measuring and measuring and measuring on a continuous basis, that is the reason why it is done under the period of three years because it is not an exercise to simply to determine, it is an exercise to understand why we have problems, to be able to see how we can correct these problems. I think it is something that has to do in a period of three years.
“Literacy is exactly the reason why we are having this exercise, we are supported by all our stakeholders with UNICEF being a very serious partner, I think I was even told that may be the largest assessment in the world, in any case, this is one of these major assessment of learning internationally, we hope the results could be very helpful. There are other countries that do it differently, we believe that it will afford us a window into what is going on in our educational system and provide data to plan and data to ensure that we provide necessary teaching alignment facilities within the country to support the education of our younger generation”, he stated.
Yetunde Oluwatosin who spoke on behalf of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) also expressed satisfaction over the assessment when she said; “I would say from yesterday that I have been going round and of course, my colleagues from other parts of the country also going round we are satisfied with the way we have seen things going.
“I must say the test items, we very very satisfied with the way it is, how the children are also engaging with it, some of my colleagues who were out yesterday had interactions with the children and of course for them, this is a new thing and of course, they excited, we are excited and satisfied as well, of course, there are one or two things, but I believe we are overcoming all of that.” She stated.
Some of the students who spoke to Tribune Online confirmed that they are enjoying the assessment.
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