Ifeanyi Onah, planning for education in Enugu- A story of sustainability

These are the confident words of Ifeanyi Onah, from the Enugu State Ministry of Education. Ifeanyi
heads the Education Management Information System (EMIS) Unit of the Ministry of Education and
has worked tirelessly with ESSPIN to ensure Enugu benefits maximally from new initiatives. He and
his colleagues from all the education MDAs come together each year with ESSPIN’s support to
engage in the Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) process. The MTSS is a series of activities that
enable the effective delivery of quality education through proper planning and budgeting. The
process also involves an assessment of the previous year regarding planned and budgeted activities
while using information from the Annual School Census, another key activity that ESSPIN supports in
the state.

ESSPIN in Enugu has supported the Ministry of Education, its departments and agencies in the
processes of planning and budgeting for priority activities since inception. This continuous support is
in line with the primary objectives of the ESSPIN in helping to provide quality basic education to
children in Nigeria using the country’s own resources.

At each meeting of the MTSS process, Ifeanyi and his team meticulously review the accuracy of data
compared to that in the Annual School Census. They check that objectives, targets and activities
within the MTSS are properly aligned with the goals for the forthcoming year. They also check to see
if the goals of the past year were achieved. Ifeanyi says: “At any point in time now, you will see the
various groups of people working on the MTSS doing so, with little or no supervision. We are on top
of the process now and it is thanks to the compact and effective team that make up ESSPIN”.

ESSPIN continually engages at state and federal levels to strengthen education institutions in Nigeria.
This is to enable the effective delivery of quality education to children in all public primary schools in
the states where it works. It has consequently been training state partners to consistently support
quality education even after the end of the programme. Many more people like Ifeanyi Onah and his
colleagues have been trained from the state, its local governments, schools and even communities in
order to ensure this work continues.