Scrapping may not be the solution to the perceived non-workability of the Junior Secondary School (JSS) – Senior Secondary School (SSS) educational policy, nor to the increasing number of school dropouts that the Federal Government links to the problem. Rather, the relevant authorities and other stakeholders should re-examine the policy and conduct a critical appraisal of its implementation so far, with a view to identifying the reasons it has yet to achieve the set objectives. This should be a task for professionals and other stakeholders.

If it is discovered that the policy’s failure, as claimed by the Education Minister, Dr Tunji Alausa, is a consequence of some stakeholders’ failure to play their role effectively in its implementation, it would be better to retain it, get such stakeholders to do the needful, and strengthen implementation so the goal can be realised. Stakeholders must be jointly convinced that the policy has become irredeemable before considering discarding it.
 
Education is crucial to the survival and progress of every country, and policies designed to boost it should not be tinkered with lightly, except when necessary. The authorities should not be cancelling every policy and expect the system to be stable for the country to achieve its national educational goal. In some cases, what should be done is to fix, not to cancel.  
 
At the inauguration of the Universal Basic Education (UBEC) Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee in Abuja recently, the minister said the Federal Government would phase out the policy separating JSS from SSS, which allows them to operate separately with different principals and facilities, because it has failed to meet its objectives. ‘
 
‘We have 20 million dropouts from primary school to JSS. Where are those students? We also found we have 80,000 public primary schools and only about 15,000 junior secondary schools. That is about a one-to-eight ratio,’ Alausa lamented.  He then declared: ‘This disarticulation policy has failed. We will phase it out. We can’t be creating positions because we want to create a director level for people while we harm our education system. It is about doing what is best for every Nigerian child.’ The minister said the proposal for abolishing the policy, which he claimed is to expand access and improve learning outcomes, would be tabled at the next meeting of the National Council on Education.
 
The splitting of JSS and SSS is a strategy for implementing the 6-3-3-4 education policy, in which a child will spend six years in primary school, three years in junior secondary school, three years in senior secondary school and four years in institutions of higher learning, including the universities. The system aims to prepare the students for jobs by teaching vocational or technical skills at the JSS level. It is also to boost the chances of students eventually becoming self-reliant, leveraging the skills already acquired, and thereby reducing the number of unemployed graduates and preventing possible consequences of joblessness on society.
 
But Alausa claimed that the government has found that the split is harming the educational system by making students quit school, disrupting the free flow of learning, and causing overcrowding at the JSS that is too low in terms of number. The government may be considering a return to the 12-year continuous basic education model to keep children in school up to 16 years.
  
But the splitting policy could have been well thought out and diligent work done by those who formulated it, for the Federal Government to have adopted it for implementation. A deep look at the objectives reveals a policy painstakingly designed to drive the acquisition of skills that can make graduates readily employable both in the private and public sectors, and also encourage them to be self-reliant.

The reality of the high unemployment level and pervading criminal activities in the country today supports this point. Besides, technical skills form part of the bedrock of innovation, technological advancement, and industrialisation that makes countries great in modern times. And most countries aspire to industrialise to become economically great.
 
But it appears the government’s grouse against the policy is mainly the perceived role that its purported failure plays in the embarrassingly high number of school dropouts in the country. Is there evidence to support this claim? Even if there is evidence, does the solution lie in its cancellation? These are relevant questions because a correct diagnosis is crucial to a correct remedy.

Notably, the minister’s analysis of previous issues had not been backed by reliable statistics. For instance, the minister’s decision to revoke the National Language Policy (NLP) of teaching children in their native language remains controversial. By that policy, English was adopted as the language of instruction in Nigerian schools from primary to the tertiary level. According to Dr Alausa, children were found to be performing below expectation in public examinations because of being taught in their mother tongue.

However, pundits rightly questioned and demanded the basis of the minister’s findings. Can every policy be so defective as to warrant outright cancellation?  If any negative effect not envisaged emerged in the process of implementation, it ought to be understood as a call for overhaul to avoid throwing the baby away with the bad water. Can all the thinking that went into the policy be so watery; all the experts that packaged the split policy foolish?

Alausa needs to know that what he described as failure of the JSS-SSS system is not the only reason for the high number of school dropouts, and possibly not as strong as other reasons.
 
The escalating insecurity that makes students palpably unsafe in the classrooms is a major factor. It is almost becoming a norm to read about innocent pupils and their teachers being in the captivity of terrorists and kidnappers across the country while their parents and guardians languish in trauma. Those who are yet to be abducted cannot concentrate on teaching and learning because they can fall victim any moment. What about the unprecedented level of poverty and hardship that have rendered many parents financially incapable of continuing to sponsor their children’s education? The minister cannot feign ignorance of the fact that thousands of those who are graduating from the universities and other higher schools in Nigeria today cannot get jobs. These factors are incapacitating parents just as they discourage many students from going to school.  Even if a new and better policy is adopted today, will that empower parents to sponsor their children in school? Will it stop kidnapping, provide employment or motivate children?
 
Policy somersaults wane citizens’ trust in government, harm the affected sector and cause avoidable waste of scarce resources. Experts can often find a way around the unintended effects in the implementation of the policy.
 
The National Council on Education that Alausa said would determine the fate of the JSS-SSS system should appreciate the fact that any education policy that does not prioritise acquisition of vocational skills by students will not be in the best interest of the country’s development aspirations. The authorities should avoid making educated youth irrelevant in the labour market.