The Federal Government has announced plans to abolish the policy separating Junior Secondary Schools and Senior Secondary Schools, saying the arrangement has contributed to the growing number of children dropping out of school.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja during the inauguration of the Universal Basic Education Commission Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee.
Alausa said findings by the ministry showed that over 20 million pupils fail to transition from primary school to junior secondary school, attributing the development partly to the shortage of junior secondary schools across the country.
According to him, Nigeria has about 80,000 public primary schools but only about 15,000 junior secondary schools, creating significant pressure on available facilities and limiting access to secondary education.
The minister noted that the existing arrangement, under which junior and senior secondary schools operate independently with separate management and facilities, had outlived its usefulness.
Describing the policy as unsuccessful, Alausa said the Federal Government would present a proposal to scrap it at the next meeting of the National Council on Education.
He explained that the proposed reform is aimed at improving access to education, increasing the number of students progressing to senior secondary school and ensuring better utilisation of existing school infrastructure across the country.
The minister also inaugurated a committee chaired by Prof. Rashid Aderinoye to monitor UBEC-funded smart, bilingual and alternative schools nationwide.
He said the committee would ensure abandoned projects are completed, handed over to state governments and opened for learning, stressing that leaving publicly funded schools uncompleted amounts to a waste of national resources.
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