ABUJA—Chairman of the ministerial visitation panel to Federal Unity Colleges, Chief Sylvester Onoja, yesterday urged the Federal Government to establish Secondary Schools Commission without delay in order to arrest the dwindling standard of secondary education in Nigeria

Chief Onoja said the dismal performance of candidates in WASSCE, SSCE and NABTEB is traceable to the obvious lapses in the system.

His words: “For too long, the secondary sector of our education system has been left to function at the whims and caprices of individuals, organisations and states. The sector continues to expand with no defined regulatory body. It is the most marginalised sector of the education sector.

The only available form of intervention by the Federal Government to public secondary schools, which was the Education Trust Fund, ETF, projects has now been stopped.

Sad enough, no substitute has been pronounced to shore up the derelicts we call secondary schools across the nation.”

On the suggestion in the Obayan Report that secondary education be merged with basic education, Onoja who is the Kogi State Commissioner for Education said that it would only compound the enormous challenges facing the second tier of education in the country. He also stated that without giving adequate attention to secondary education, the foundation for government’s Vision 202020 would be severely flawed.

He explained that , “This is the sector that has been victim of employment embargo in virtually all the states of the federation and at the national level. Secondary school enrolment continues to grow with fewer hands to manage the sector. Retirement by the aged continues with no equitable re-placement in the system. The federal government must bring its might to this sector through massive intervention in the provision of classrooms, teaching and learning facilities and professional salary for the retention of capable hands in the classroom.”