The Federal Government has announced plans to abolish the separation between Junior Secondary School (JSS) and Senior Secondary School (SSS) as part of efforts to improve student retention and address the growing number of children leaving school before completing secondary education.\n<\/p>\n
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Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, disclosed the proposal on Tuesday during the inauguration of the Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in Abuja.\n<\/p>\n
According to the minister, the current \u201cdisarticulation policy,\u201d which separates junior and senior secondary schools with different principals, management structures and facilities, has failed to achieve its objectives and has instead created barriers to educational access.\n<\/p>\n
He said the Federal Government will present a proposal to formally abolish the policy at the next meeting of the National Council on Education (NCE), Nigeria\u2019s highest education policymaking body.<\/p>\n
Alausa expressed concern over the country\u2019s high number of out-of-school children, revealing that about 20 million pupils drop out between primary school and junior secondary school.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have 20 million dropouts from primary school to JSS. Where are those students?\u201d he asked.\n<\/p>\n
He also highlighted a major imbalance in school infrastructure, noting that Nigeria has about 80,000 public primary schools but only around 15,000 junior secondary schools.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also found we have 80,000 public primary schools and only about 15,000 junior secondary schools. That\u2019s a one-to-eight ratio,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
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According to the minister, the shortage of junior secondary schools has created significant bottlenecks, resulting in overcrowded classrooms while many senior secondary school facilities remain underutilised.\n<\/p>\n
He cited Kaduna and several northern states as examples where the existing policy has contributed to poor transition rates from primary to secondary education.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis disarticulation policy has failed. We will phase it out. We can\u2019t be creating positions because we want to create director-level appointments for people while we harm our education system. It\u2019s about doing what is best for every Nigerian child,\u201d Alausa said.\n<\/p>\n
He explained that the proposed reform is part of the Tinubu administration\u2019s broader strategy to expand access to education, improve retention rates and achieve better learning outcomes nationwide.\n<\/p>\n
The minister acknowledged that previous efforts to reduce the number of out-of-school children had fallen short but expressed confidence that the current administration would make meaningful progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government will not fail. We are fixing it,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
During the event, Alausa also inaugurated the UBEC Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee, chaired by Prof. Rashid Aderinoye, to oversee the implementation of UBEC-funded Smart Schools, Bilingual Schools and Alternative Schools across the country.\n<\/p>\n
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The committee has been tasked with ensuring that the projects are completed, handed over to state governments and opened for teaching and learning.\n<\/p>\n
The minister, however, lamented that despite significant investments by UBEC in Smart Schools and other education projects, many remain abandoned, incomplete, or yet to admit students, describing the situation as an unacceptable waste of public funds.<\/p>\n
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If approved, the proposed reform could improve the transition from primary to secondary education, reduce dropout rates, and strengthen Nigeria\u2019s human capital development. In the long term, a better-educated workforce would provide businesses, including MSMEs, with a larger pool of skilled talent, supporting productivity, innovation and economic growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Government has announced plans to abolish the separation between Junior Secondary School (JSS) and Senior Secondary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1061513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3094],"tags":[291394,291395,51,291396,55165,281862,3134,291397,291398,291399,291400,83336,291401,142757,285336,291402,113038,16,15],"class_list":["post-1061512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-asset-grant","tag-biodun-and-ibikunle-foundation","tag-business","tag-business-accelerator","tag-business-training","tag-entrepreneur-support","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-entrepreneurship-nigeria","tag-grant-opportunities-nigeria","tag-mentorship-programme","tag-msme-funding","tag-nigerian-entrepreneurs","tag-seedinvest","tag-small-business-support","tag-sme-development","tag-sme-grants-nigeria","tag-startup-grants","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1061513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}