The Sokoto State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, in collaboration with the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment Project (AGILE), has trained Education Management Information System (EMIS) officers on data collection.
The one-day training, tagged “Training of Trainers for the Establishment of EMIS Desk Officers at 448 AGILE Focus Secondary Schools and Capacity Building on Data Generation, Management, and Reporting,” was held on Thursday at Soulcare Hotels, Sokoto.
Speaking at the event, the State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mohammed Tukur Alkali, represented by the Director of Senior Secondary Schools in the ministry, Dr Kabiru Garba, reiterated that education is a core component of the nine-point smart agenda of the state governor. He emphasised that the current administration has made significant investments in the education sector, such as the recent payment of WAEC and NECO fees by the state government.
“The state government, as part of its plan to develop the education sector, is training teachers to shift from analogue to digital methods, as is the trend in the developed world. We want them to be digitally educated so they can handle current challenges in the education sector,” the commissioner said.
He urged the EMIS officers to remain focused on the training and reminded them of their responsibility to pass on the training to other staff members in their respective schools. Alkali also encouraged the people of the state to ensure that girls not only enrol but also stay in school, complete their secondary education, and proceed to higher institutions.
In his welcome address, Suleiman Musa, the system technical lead for AGILE projects, stressed the importance of accurate and reliable data in the delivery of quality education. He noted that “it is only when you have accurate and reliable data that you can make effective decisions.”
Musa further explained that the AGILE project aims to ensure that EMIS officers are present in every school in Sokoto to gather comprehensive data for decision-making. “For us to achieve this, we brought EMIS master trainers to train and refresh them so they can return and pass the knowledge to the 448 EMIS officers established in AGILE schools across the twenty local government areas,” he said.
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