Sokoto Government Targets Digitalised Basic, Secondary Education

The Sokoto government says it will fully digitalise its basic and primary education within the next two years.

The Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Ahmed Ala, stated this in an interview on Monday in Abuja.

Mr Ala said that a fully digitialised education system would aid the quality of teaching and learning in the state.

According to him, this will also make it easier for the government to supervise workers in the system, particularly teachers, as well as keep track of policy implementation in the education sector.

“We want to fully digitise the information system in basic and secondary education in Sokoto state. This will help us to assess teachers’ and principals’ performance on key performance indicators, including teaching and regularity in classes.

“It will also help us to track how they carry out other functions and keep administrative records,” he said.

Ala said that so far, the digital platform had enabled the state government to rank basic and secondary schools in the state.

According to him, schools with 14 points or more are ranked as very good, while those with six points or fewer are ranked as poor.

He said that the initiative, Education Management Information System, would provide a very effective platform for infrastructure, ICT, libraries, and all other relevant information at the fingertips.

“The digitisation will also provide ready information to development partners on our weaknesses and strengths. This will help in planning, execution, and policy implementation,’’ the commissioner stated.

He said that while EMIS would be useful in the aforementioned areas, the Teachers Management Information System would serve a similar purpose for academic staff members.

Mr Ala added that the state government was determined to improve the quality of teachers, recognising their importance in achieving a truly literate society.

“We are also radically and vigorously undertaking teacher training because we found out that so many teachers do not have the necessary knowledge, skills, experience, and competence to teach in secondary schools. So far, we have done two sets of training, and we have been able to train 2,500 teachers,’’ he said.

(NAN)