The National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) has engaged education stakeholders on Registration and Issuance of National Identification Number (NIN) to pupils in all schools.
Director General (DG) of the NCRA, Mohamed M. Massaquoi expressed appreciation to the education sector for their role played so far in ensuring the process succeeds.
He explained that the engagement is a timely one as stakeholders involved in the process of registering and issuing NIN to all pupils in all schools hang heads to get d best output as directed by cabinet last year.
The directive from cabinet also stated that ministries of finance, internal affairs, basic education, higher education, constitute a small committee to plan the registration and Issuance process.
Mohamed said: “The committee have identified key stakeholders involved in the education sector whose role will be very much critical in the discharge of the cabinet directive. That is why we identified many of you, Conference of Principals, Teaching Service Commission, Sierra Leone Teachers Union, private schools.”
Since November 2022, he went on, they have had number of meetings and plans that they have discussed and have now decided to move their teams to the schools in order to capture the biometric details of the pupils.
He noted that the registration exercise is very much important to government as its support would now be guided by reliable and concise data, adding that bloating school enrollment, identity impersonation as well as subsidies government pay would now come from an informed perspective.
Director of Operations, NCRA, Abubakarr Javombo in a slide presentation gave an outline of the Authority’s activities covering the entire process from the designing of the school registration and NIN issuance journal, to the final day of registration and retrieving of staff and materials.
He noted that the NCRA is not doing this alone but are in collaboration with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE), and other education stakeholders.
He pointed out that the exercise will target all school pupils from government and government assisted schools, mission and private schools who have not been registered with the NCRA and subsequently issued with a NIN.
He appealed to parents, school authorities and guardians to correctly fill out the personal Information form for the pupils that would be sent to schools prior to the commencement of the exercise in order to facilitate easy search.
The exercise will commence on the 27th March to 5th April 2023 in the western area and the eastern region concurrently, while other regions will be communicated later.
