Education Stakeholders have applauded the Federal Government for setting modalities in place to carry out a National Learning Assessment for the Basic Education level in June this year.
They gave the commendation in Lagos , at the just concluded Ten Day Training and Workshop on Item Banking, item Writing and Review organized by the Federal Ministry of Education as part of the preparatory activities for the 2026 National Learning Assessment (NLA).
Education stakeholders who were drawn from Higher Institutions of Learning, Curriculum experts from the Universal Basic Education Commission, Federal ministry of education, Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council and other Educational Agencies.
Other participants are Classroom teachers in English Studies, Mathematics Basic Science and Technology, and Citizenship and Heritage studies from the thirty-seven states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
Speaking on the importance of the workshop, the Director, Educational Planning, Research and Development Department, Federal Ministry of Education, Mrs. Obianuju Anigbogu said that the workshop was a milestone in Nigeria’s collective effort at strengthening the credibility, relevance, and usefulness of learning assessment data in the nation’s basic and secondary education system.
She stressed that the National Learning Assessment was not just a technical exercise but a strategic initiative designed to generate reliable evidence on what children at the basic and secondary school levels know, understand, and can do at different stages of their schooling.
Mrs. Anigbogu said such evidence was necessary for informed policymaking, system improvement, accountability, and ultimately, better learning outcomes for all Nigerian children.
In a contribution, the Director, Monitoring and evaluation, Universal Basic Education Commission, Mrs. Ada Ogwuche said while the Learning Assessment had always been carried out at the state levels before now, the new initiative would be comprehensive as it would be a collation of all the data generated in the exercise all over the country.
She announced that the pilot project of the assessment would be carried out next month.
The Chief of Education, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, Abuja. Vanessa Lee said her organisation is in support of the National Learning Assessment project going by the positive impact it would have on the nation’s education sector.
A creative Learning Technical Advisor, Dr. Zarko Vukmirovic , an international consultant to the federal Ministry of Education said that the National Learning Assessment was critical to formulating the right policy for the education sector in any country.
He stressed that with all the modalities the Federal ministry of education had put in place to see to the actualisation of the exercise in June this year, he was confident that the programme would be successful and impactful.
Some of the participants at the event who shared their experiences with Radio Nigeria said that the ten days workshop really exposed them to new techniques involved in students’ assessment.
Reporting by Kikelomo Ifekoya