The federal government is to phase out the long-standing policy that structurally separates Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) from Senior Secondary Schools (SSS).
The sweeping structural reform follows alarming data revealing that more than 20 million children drop out of the school system between primary enrollment and senior secondary completion.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, announced the policy reversal in Abuja during the inauguration of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee.
The current “disarticulation policy,” which dates back to frameworks introduced under the 6-3-3-4 system, forces junior and senior secondary schools to operate as entirely separate administrative units. This requires separate physical infrastructure, different budgets, and independent principals.
Dr. Alausa stated that the strategy has created catastrophic structural bottlenecks across the federation. He highlighted a severe institutional mismatch, noting that Nigeria currently operates approximately 80,000 public primary schools but only 15,000 junior secondary schools—a steep one-to-eight ratio.
“About 24 million children enroll in our primary schools, but only about four million of them complete senior secondary,” Dr. Alausa revealed. “We have over 20 million children dropping out between primary school and junior secondary school. Where are those students?”
The minister explained that this institutional deficit leaves millions of primary school leavers with no local junior secondary school to transition into. This has led to severe overcrowding in the few available junior facilities, while existing senior secondary schools remain empty and underutilized.
“We have overflowing junior secondary schools and empty senior secondary schools,” the minister noted. “I can objectively report today that this disarticulation policy has failed. We will phase it out.”
He also targeted the administrative bloat created by the split, which education stakeholders have long criticised for creating artificial bureaucratic jobs at the expense of students.
“We cannot continue creating administrative positions while damaging our education system,” Dr. Alausa added. “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 structural collapse has worsened a deep-seated learning crisis across the country. Dr. Alausa cited statistics indicating that roughly three out of four Nigerian children cannot read or understand a basic, age-appropriate text by the age of 10.
While the minister admitted that successive administrations had failed to fix the school transition deficit, he insisted that the current administration would push the changes through. The proposal to formally abolish the separation policy will be presented at the next meeting of the National Council on Education (NCE)—the nation’s highest educational policy-making body—for swift adoption.
“The previous governments may have failed in this regard, but this government will not fail,” he stated. “We are fixing this. We need to create more opportunities for children to move seamlessly through the education system.”
The policy shift coincides with a broader crackdown on uncompleted and abandoned educational infrastructure across Nigeria.
The minister expressed deep concern over extensive state funds locked up in uncompleted basic education projects. To address this, he set up a high-powered monitoring committee, chaired by education expert Professor Rashid Aderinoye, to accelerate the completion and handover of hundreds of UBEC-funded Smart Schools, Bilingual Schools, and Alternative Schools nationwide.
Many of these advanced facilities, designed to integrate digital learning technology, currently sit completed but empty because of bureaucratic delays or a lack of state-level coordination.
“The purpose of these schools is to educate children, not to remain locked up after completion,” the minister warned, describing the delays as an unacceptable waste of public resources. “If they are not used, then it becomes a wasted investment. We cannot continue to suffer in the midst of plenty.”
The newly formed committee has been ordered to immediately clear the administrative hurdles, hand the facilities over to state governments, and open the classroom doors to learners.
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