NSSEC decries lack of infrastructural facilities in senior secondary schools

The National Senior Secondary Education Commission has decried the dearth of infrastructural facilities in senior secondary schools in the country.

The commission also said it has commenced the review of the Zero Draft Minimum Standard earlier produced in the year 2022 to enable the commission to carry on its mandate of prescribing and enforcing minimum standards in all the public and private senior secondary schools in Nigeria.

According to the statement issued by the Head, Public Relations, NSSEC, Fatima Bappare, in Abuja, the Chairman of the Commission, Nimota Akanbi, said this recently at the NSSEC stakeholders meeting held in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education and the Adolescent Girls Initiative Learning Empowerment in Keffi, Nasarawa State.

“Dr Nimota Akanbi said that it is common knowledge that most of the senior secondary schools in the country are faced with the challenges of inadequate infrastructural facilities, lack of required science laboratories and technical workshops as well as inappropriate tools and equipment for skills acquisition.

“These challenges, she said, were so glaring during the Needs Assessment Exercise recently conducted by the commission in some public and private Senior Secondary Schools across the geo-political zones in the country.

“Furthermore, she revealed that many non-qualified and non-registered persons are being engaged in schools. This action, she observed, does not conform to international best practices and hence resulting to poor performance of students in senior secondary schools.

“She, therefore, implored the Stakeholders to bring their wealth of experiences and expertise to bear by contributing meaningfully to the draft documents for the benefit of our Children at the Senior Secondary Education.”

Earlier quoted in the statement was the Acting Executive Secretary of the commission, Ibraheem Abdulkareem, who noted that the purpose of the stakeholders’ meeting among others was to scrutinise the draft and strategize on ways of enforcing the minimum standards in schools in order to curtail the ills in that section before presenting the draft to the national bodies for ratification before implementation.