Federal Government has announced plans to abolish the Junior Secondary School Common Entrance Examination and replace it with a continuous assessment system to track pupils from primary one and improve transition rates.
Education Minister Tunji Alausa disclosed the reform during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Saturday, citing a sharp drop in enrolment between primary and junior secondary levels.
“We have over 50,000 public primary schools in the country with over 23 million pupils. However… only a little over 3 million among those pupils move to the junior secondary school level,” Alausa said, questioning where the remaining pupils go.
He explained the new system: “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.”
To support the change, the government will introduce a unique Learner Identification Number from primary school to monitor attendance and detect dropouts.
“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 added.
The minister said he has discussed the need for more public secondary schools with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum and is also exploring the revival of the school feeding programme under the Ministry of Education.
