sQuid launches digital Attendance Monitoring programme in Nigeria

sQuid has launched its digital Attendance Monitoring programme in Northern Nigeria, working closely with Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and with the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB’s) in Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Kaduna.

Initially rolling out to 80 schools across the four states, each student is issued with their own contactless personalised smartcard which is then presented to the sQuid terminal recording the students attendance; enabling teachers to take attendance with speed and accuracy.

The smartcard-based digital system provides a fast effective way to capture attendance records and report them to a digital hub. By clustering the attendance data, it becomes possible to gain greater insights into attendance patterns and more importantly to identify those students who may be at risk of dropping out of school.

With 2024 dedicated as the "Year of Education" by the Organisation of African Union at The African Union Summit of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa earlier this year, this launch has come at the perfect time. 98 million school-aged children and young people are currently not attending school in Africa - this is globally the highest number of out of school population.

UNESCO is a driving force to ensure all children have access to quality education and have pledged to support the efforts of the African Union. You can read more about UNESCO's support of the African Union here.

Bruce Kaniu, General Manager for sQuid Kenya, who is leading the implementation said, ‘We used Attendance Monitoring to great effect in our Kenya iMlango programme, and we think it will be really helpful in helping to better understand the challenges of attendance that are being experienced in some parts of Nigeria. The Attendance trends we are seeing from the school's data captured can assist schools management for better planning.”

Director of Integrated sQuid Solutions in Nigeria Umar Abdullahi, speaking in Kano commented that ‘after much planning, we are now able to demonstrate how to use new digital tools to help us tackle the significant education challenges we are facing. These are early days, but it is a significant step forward’.