EDUCATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN NIGERIA: SCHOOL DATA BEYOND STUDENT PERFORMANCE DATA

Abstract

Nigeria as a country has been in a perpetual struggle to improve its education system. So many factors have been identified as major setbacks to the attainment of the country’s educational goals. Some of these factors include: inadequate funding, poor implementation of educational policies, unqualified teachers and lack of accountability. The phrase ‘lack of accountability’, within the context of this work, refers to inadequate use of data in both the administrative and instructional decision-making process. Different data types are available in schools, but there is little or no research indicating that they are put to optimal use. This underutilization of data resources could be linked to lack of data analytic and interpretation skills on the part of some school administrators and teachers. Overtime, most schools have relied solely on student performance data or students results (grades from tests and government-approved examinations) to measure how well a school is performing in meeting its educational goals. However, research has shown that student performance data, as an output data, is limited because it does not provide information on the processes that led to the output. It is, therefore, necessary to incorporate the input data (demographic, perception and school process data) to get a comprehensive view, identify root causes for not meeting goals, and plan the next action steps. Using the method of analysis, this work aims to identify other data types (demographic, perception and school process data) that contribute to the student performance data. This will be followed by the analysis of each data type to determine the role in the school improvement plan. We shall discuss the way forward in using data to improve teaching and learning in Nigeria’s school and finally conclude.