The Executive Secretary, National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC), Dr Iyela Ajayi, has said that setting approved minimum standards for senior secondary school will reposition Nigeria’s education sector.Ajayi said this while delivering a keynote address at a workshop for the Southern Zone Critique of the Zero Draft Minimum Standards for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria, on Wednesday in Uyo.
He said that the workshop was organised for education stakeholders to brainstorm and come up with standards for senior secondary education in the country.The executive secretary said that such standards would ensure uniformity in the operations of senior secondary schools.“We are gathered here today to critique the draft National Minimum Standards of Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria, and this exercise is for critical stakeholders in the southern zone.
“We held the first workshop on the same issue in Bauchi to cover the northern zone of the country.“When approved and implemented, the minimum standards would set benchmarks for all aspects of senior secondary education in Nigeria.“The national minimum standards would play a critical role in repositioning senior secondary education in Nigeria,” Ajayi said.According to Ajayi, if anything goes wrong with secondary education, there will be problems at the tertiary level.He said that there was the need for the workshop to set a benchmark for secondary education standards in the country.He urged the participants to critique the zero draft minimum standards for senior secondary education to ensure acceptability.
He urged state government to cooperate with the Federal Government in ensuring quality standards of education by paying their counterpart funds regularly.
In her remarks, the Akwa Ibom Deputy Governor, Sen. Akon Eyakenyi, said that there was need to re-visit the quality of education in Nigeria.
Eyakenyi said that education was at the centre of socio-economic development, adding that no country would develop above the quality of its education.
She said that there was need to improve in the quality of personnel, infrastructure and curriculum in the education sector.
“If we sincerely want to fix Nigeria, we must re-visit our school system with a view to establishing minimum standards in the quality of personnel, infrastructure and curriculum.
“We can’t grow beyond the quality of our school system.
“The giant strides recorded by developed nations of the world are always traceable to their school systems,” she said.
The state Commissioner for Education, Mrs Idongesit Etiebet, said that minimum standards for secondary education would enable students to have qualitative and quantitative learning.
Etiebet said that Akwa Ibom Government would partner with NSSEC to ensure achievement of the minimum standards.
She added that the state government would be diligent in the payment of its counterpart fund to ensure qualitative education.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the participants were drawn from the West African Examination Council, National Examination Council, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Nigeria Union of Teachers and ministries of education in southern Nigeria. (NAN)
