The Federal Government has announced plans to scrap the Junior Secondary School (JSS) Common Entrance Examination and replace it with a continuous assessment system aimed at improving access and tracking of pupils across the country.
Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed the move during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Saturday.
He said the reform is designed to address longstanding gaps in the transition from primary to secondary education.
According to the minister, the proposed continuous assessment system will rely on continuous assessment (CA), capturing pupils’ academic performance from primary one. The records will follow each child throughout their schooling, including transfers between schools.
“It will be replaced by Continuous Assessment. The CA will reflect the performance of the pupil from primary one and even if a pupil is transferring from one school to another, he will take it along to his new school,” Alausa said.
He revealed that the reform is backed by data showing a significant drop in enrolment between primary and junior secondary levels. While over 23 million pupils are enrolled in public primary schools nationwide, only a little above 3 million progress to junior secondary schools.
“We have over 50,000 public primary schools in the country with over 23 million pupils. However, from statistics available to us, only a little over 3 million among those pupils move to the junior secondary school level in our public schools, then the question is, where are the about 20 million not enrolled in our public secondary schools?” he queried.
“It is obvious that we cannot say our private schools accommodate all of them. The issue is simply lack of access and we are working on that. There is need to build more schools and I have met the Nigerian Governors’ Forum over that. State governments need to build more schools to accommodate more pupils and students,” he said.
To complement the reform, the government plans to introduce a Learner Identification Number for every pupil from the primary level.
The unique ID will enable authorities to monitor students’ progress and identify those who drop out of school.
“To also follow up on our pupils and students, we are introducing the Learner Identification Number right from primary school level for our children. It will be unique to each child and they will have the number no matter where they started schooling or later transferred to,” he explained.
“If somebody is expected to be in JSS class one and he is not there, we will be able to know the reason why he is not continuing his education,” Alausa said,” the minister added.
Alausa also noted that discussions have been held with state governments on the need to build more schools to accommodate the growing number of pupils.
In addition, he disclosed that efforts are underway to revive the school feeding programme to boost enrolment and retention in public schools, with consideration being given to transferring its oversight to the Ministry of Education.
