Secondary Education

Secondary education is the form of education children receive after primary education and before the tertiary stage. The broad aims of secondary education within our overall national objectives are preparation of students for useful living within the society and for higher education.

Government plans that secondary education should be of six year duration and be given in two stages, the junior secondary school (JSS) and the senior secondary school (SSS); each stage being of three year duration.

The junior secondary school is both pre-vocational and academic. It is tuition free in some states of the federation and the basic subjects are taught to enable pupils acquire further knowledge and develop skills.

Student who leave school at the junior high school stage may then go on to an apprenticeship system or some other scheme for out-of-school vocational training. The senior secondary school is for those able and willing to have a complete six-year secondary education. It is comprehensive but has a core curriculum designed to broaden pupil's knowledge and outlook. The core curriculum is the group of subjects which every pupil must take in addition to his or her specialties.

They are: English Language, Mathematics, and one Nigerian Language, one of the following alternative subjects: Physics, Chemistry and Biology, one of the Literature in English, history and Geography, Agricultural Science Or a vocational subject.

The core subjects are basic subjects, which will enable a student to offer arts or science in higher education.
Government has established a unity school in each of the states of the federation except the new ones. There are currently 63 such schools in the country. Government believes that education should help develop in our youths a sense of unity, patriotism and love of our country. It is essential that everything possible should be done to foster in them a sense of national belonging. Every secondary school should therefore function as a unity school by enrolling students belonging to other areas or states.

To this end, the Federal Government has set an example by a programme of Federal Government Colleges which admit students on quota basis from all the states. In this way, young pupils in their formative and impressionable years from all parts of the federation, with different languages, ethnic and cultural backgrounds have opportunity to work, play, live and grow together, to learn to understand and tolerate one another, and thereby, to learn to understand and tolerate one another, and thereby develop a horizon of a truly united Nigeria.