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The 2010 Nigeria
Education Data Survey (NEDS) kicked off nationwide on Monday with a
mission to provide information on our nation’s education sector. The
chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Samuila Danko
Makama, who spoke at the launch of the survey in Abuja, said that as
Nigeria strives to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
policy-makers need reliable data not only about the nation’s social,
economic and health challenges, but also its educational challenges.

“Thus, a survey
which could provide hard numbers about the schooling status of Nigerian
children, for instance, would go a long way in achieving the MDGs,” he
said.

Mr. Makama added
that the commission had signed an agreement with the Research Training
Institute of the United States of America on September 28, 2009, for
the implementation of the survey. Signing the agreement, according to
him, has since thrown the commission into a series of activities to
prepare itself for the main survey field work.

Help the kids

The commission is
also partnering with the Universal Basic Education Commission and the
Federal Ministry of Education on the household-based survey, which is a
follow up to the 2004 NEDS and 2008 NEDS.

The survey hopes to determine factors influencing the enrolment of
children in school, reasons why pupils and students drop out of school,
and find out how much households are spending on children’s schooling.