stakeholders at NSSEC event

The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman says
the Federal Government will hold state Commissioners of education responsible If the implementation of the National Minimum Standards for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria Fails.

The Minister stated this weekend in Abuja
While presenting his address at the Stakeholders’ Validation meeting of the draft National Minimum Standards for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria and Critique workshop of the draft Strategic Plan (2024 – 2027) for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria.

He expressed happiness that the Commission is focused on the delivery of its mandate by developing a draft National Minimum Standards which is being validated at the gathering.

While commending all stakeholders for their input in bringing out such an important document for use in the education sector, the Minister said, it would be appropriate to validate the draft document which has undergone series of scrutiny and critique by relevant stakeholders in the country.

Professor Mamman urge all stakeholders in the education sector to support the implementation and establishment of these standards as this will help in laying a solid foundation for the students especially now that the education sector is grappling with a lot of challenges.

He expressed hope that the gathering will critique the draft Strategic plan (2024-2027) for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria which was developed by the commission as
He implored the state commissioners of education to take ownership of the document as the implementation lies solely on their shoulders.

He assured that the Federal Government is committed to resuscitating and revamping the National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC) to properly regulate and provide intervention in the Senior Secondary Education sub-sector in Nigeria.

According to him, ”having a regulatory agency in the secondary education sub-sector will help bring about the desired change that will revitalise the system as other sub sectors all have regulatory and intervention agencies which includes Universal Basic Education
Commission (UBEC), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and the National Universities Commission (NUC) respectively”.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary, National Senior Secondary Education Commission, (NSSEC), Dr Iyela Ajayi gives insightful account of how the commission has faired since he took over the mantle of leadership of the Commission over eight months ago.

He explained that before 2021, it was only the Senior Secondary Education sub-sector that operated without a regulatory and intervention agency which had negative implications for the all-important and critical sub-sector of the Nigeria education system.

He said “we have successfully developed a National Policy on Senior Secondary Education and its implementation guidelines. The policy is designed to provide a comprehensive framework and guidelines for the operation of Senior secondary education in the country, the policy is first of its kind in this country and after undergoing different processes, was given final approval by the National Council on Education (NCE) in December 2023 at Lagos.

The Executive Secretary, further explained that the draft Minimum Standards document has gone through different stages of preparation, the preparation of the zero draft document was done at Keffi, followed by critique workshops on the document at Bauchi and Uyo for the Northern and Southern zones respectively in the year 2023.

“After, the Validation of this document, it will be forwarded to the next meetings of the Joint Consultative Committee on Education (JCCE) and finally to the National Council on Education (NCE) for consideration and final approval later this year. When this is done, it will be mandatory for all the Public and Private senior secondary schools in Nigeria to implement the National Minimum Standards as it will define benchmark for all aspects of senior secondary education in the country”.

He reiterated the need for stakeholders to know that the law has also given the Commission the power to enforce the Minimum Standards.

” This we will do through a robust monitoring system, with time, benchmark performance would also be used as the basis for the ranking of senior secondary schools in Nigeria”, He said.

One of the key mandates of NSSEC as contained in the NSSEC Act 2023 is to prescribe and enforce Minimum Standards for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria, which necessitated the establishment of the National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC) as a regulatory and intervention agency for all aspects of senior secondary education and TVET in Nigeria.

On his part, the Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Basic Education and Services, Hon. Mukhtar Shagaya said the development of the two documents will no doubt help in repositioning the secondary education sub-sector while also commending NSSEC for the initiatives.