The Federal Government announced plans to remove the long-held policy of dividing junior and senior secondary schools on Tuesday, after it was revealed that more than 20 million students drop out before reaching senior secondary school. Dr. Tunji Alausa, the Minister of Education, claimed that the program, which was implemented to divide junior and senior secondary education into different administrative institutions, had not succeeded in its goal and had instead made education more difficult to access nationwide. This was revealed by Alausa during the opening of the Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee of the Universal Basic Education Commission in Abuja.
According to him, the decision was made in response to data demonstrating the stark disparity in the number of elementary and junior secondary schools in the country, which prevents millions of kids from advancing in their education. He claimed that while many senior high schools continued to be underutilized, the lack of junior secondary schools led to extreme overcrowding.
The National Policy on Education, sometimes known as the 6-3-3-4 system, was first developed in 1977 and included the JSS-SSS framework in 1982.
According to Alausa, the plan to repeal the policy will be put forward for approval at the National Council on Education's upcoming meeting. The minister noted that the change is a component of larger initiatives to increase learning results and enhance educational access.
About three out of every four students at the basic education level are unable to read and comprehend an age-appropriate text by the age of ten, according to the minister, who remarked while voicing new concerns about Nigeria's worsening learning crisis.
Alausa called the nation's rate of learning poverty "alarming" while speaking later at the Federal Ministry of Education and Universal Basic Education Commission Roundtable Convening Meeting on Digital Resources Available to Achieve Learning Outcomes. According to him, the data highlighted the urgent need to use digital technology to revolutionize education.
The Nigeria Learning Passport, Inspire, Ignite, EduRevamp, E-Learn, the Greenfield Learning Management System, and virtual classroom solutions are just a few of the digital learning platforms that the federal government has already created. The minister urged state governments to make the most of these platforms.
He claims that the platforms offer curriculum-aligned lessons taught by some of the top educators in the nation and can help alleviate the teacher shortage in disciplines like chemistry, physics, math, and English language. He clarified that educational institutions without subject matter experts could link students to recorded or live virtual classes while enabling online communication between students and instructors.
Alausa bemoaned the platforms' continued low uptake in spite of the investments. He revealed that while there are already 2.3 million Nigeria Learning Passport users, this number is only a small portion of the country's total 67 million primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary school students.
He praised the United Nations Children's Fund for funding the creation of the Nigeria Learning Passport, pointing out that it helped children impacted by insecurity and school closures and maintained education during the coronavirus outbreak.