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Council approves teaching of mother tongue in schools
By Tom Chiahemen
senior
correspondent, Abuja
The 51st Meeting of the National Council on Education (NCE),
which ended in Minna, Niger State at the weekend, has approved that the policy
on the use of the Mother Tongue in teaching pupils in primaries one to three
should be strictly enforced in mono-lingual communities while major Nigerian
languages should be vigorously taught as school subjects.
The NCE, which is the highest policy-making body on
Education, also approved that National Values and Capital Market Studies
curricula be infused into existing relevant subjects to be taught in Nigerian
schools. It commended the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for sponsoring the development of the
National Values and Capital Market Curricula respectively.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting,
the Council further endorsed the separation of Junior Secondary School (JSS)
from the Senior Secondary School (SSS), as well as their administrations, to
ensure a more efficient supervision of teaching and learning in schools.
By the Council’s decision, which is in consonance
with the 6-3-3-4 system of education adopted in 1991, there will now be a clear
administrative demarcation of the Junior secondary Schools from the Senior
secondary Schools, even when they are located within the same premises,
including the appointment of separate principals.
While noting the efforts of the National Mathematical
Centre Abuja in trying to improve the teaching and learning of Mathematical
science at all levels, the Council urged the Federal Ministry of Education to
empower the Centre to award Certificates, Diplomas and Degrees, instead of
“Certificate of Attendance.”
It also noted the efforts of the National Board for
technical Education (NBTE) at upgrading the skills level of the technicians
programmes and enhancing Polytechnic programmes through new policy thrusts for
the re-structuring of the National Diploma (ND) programme and the
harmonisation of entry requirements into polytechnics with those of the
universities.
The Council further approved that the National Universities
Commission (NUC) should provide the list of approved Institutions so that
states would participate in the enforcement of the ban on satellite campuses.
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