The Federal Government on Tuesday announced plans to abolish the long-standing policy separating junior secondary schools from senior secondary schools after revealing that more than 20 million pupils are dropping out before reaching senior secondary education.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the policy, introduced to separate junior and senior secondary education into distinct administrative structures, had failed to achieve its objective and had instead worsened access to education across the country.
Alausa disclosed this in Abuja during the inauguration of the Universal Basic Education Commission Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee.
He said the decision followed evidence showing a huge gap between the number of primary schools and junior secondary schools nationwide, leaving millions of children unable to progress in their education.
“We have 20 million dropouts from primary school to junior secondary school. Where are those students? We also found we have 80,000 public primary schools and only about 15,000 junior secondary schools. That’s a one-to-eight ratio,” he said.
