TESCOM boss laments mass failure in SSCE

Worried by the high rate of failure in public examinations, former Kogi State Commissioner for Education and Technology and present Chairman, Kogi State Teaching Service Commission, Chief Sylvester Onoja, has advocated the resuscitation of the National Commission for Secondary Schools of Nigeria signed into law in 1999 by former head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, in order to save the education sector.

Onoja, who was a former principal of the prestigious, Kings College, Lagos, made the call yesterday in Lokoja while reacting to the mass failure of the students in Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination, SSSCE, which results were just released by the examination body.

“The May/June result only draws our attention to the damage being done to Vision 20:2020 if urgent steps are not taken to address the distressing state of education in Nigeria.

“There must be minimum standard in terms of number of teachers, classrooms, learning materials, among others, before establishing a secondary school,” he said.

He said secondary education continues to expand without a defined regulatory bodywhich has led to every nook and cranny of the country witnessing proliferation of schools, with no single body calling the shots.

Onoja stated that since the law backing the commission was signed into law in 1999 by Gen. Abubakar, it has never seen the light of day, adding that secondary schools had become orphans in the educational sector.

The former commissioner said lack of standard and regulations on the establishment of secondary schools in the country had led to the falling standard of education.

He lamented that the establishment of secondary schools had been left to the whims and caprices of states, individuals and organisations, who were out to make profit.

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