THE National Coordinating Committee (NCC) on the review of National Policy on Education (NPE), has constituted a nine-man core Technical Team to harmonise the various reports of NPE from the six geo-political zones of the country to a single draft final document which is expected to be presented at the next National Council of Education (NCE) holding in Calabar before the end of the year.

This was one of the major activities that took place at the 3rd meeting of the NCC on the review of NPE which took place a fortnight ago at the Conference Centre Complex of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Sheda, Abuja. The reports emanated from the zonal consultative fora which took place across the country in July, this year.

Prior to organisaing the zonal consultative fora, NERDC had, in response to the December 2005 NCE directive, immediately commenced the process of review of the 2004 edition of the NPE and adopted a scientific approach in carrying out the review by first conducting a national survey to get the feelings of Nigerians, especially critical stakeholders in education on the imperativeness or otherwise for the NPE review. In concert with operators and stakeholders of education, NERDC then constituted the NCC in order to broaden the scope of planning and consultation, ensure a wider scope of policy review participation as well as to add quality assurance on the final draft document.

It then drew up a review implementation plan, gave approval to it and consequently conducted concurrent consultative meeting which held at each of the six geo-political zones after which the zonal reports were collated before convening the 3rd NCC, a forum where the reports were considered and a core Technical Team set up with the mandate to harmonise the reports to a draft document.

According to the Chairman of the NCC who is also the Executive Secretary of NERDC, Professor Godswill Obioma, the review process is in tandem with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (NDGs), Education For All (EFA), as well as the country's on-going reform process which is encapsulated in the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), and which has value re-orientation, poverty eradication, wealth generation and job creation as well empowering people through education, adding that the NPE review process has also taken into cognisance other emerging issues.

Indeed, these new trends were the guiding principles of the individuals who made inputs in form of memoranda and/or oral presentations at the zonal consultative fora as shown in their respective recommendations.

The North-West zone recommended as follows: the philosophy and goals of education needs to be modified and be more definitive, teaching of French is considered very significant,, provisions for early childhood/pre-primary education in the NPE need to be developed clearly in respect of many identified issues ranging as administration, regulation, curriculum, financing, instructional materials etc and that Junior Secondary School (JSS), from should be separated from Senior Secondary School (SSS), with its objective articulated under basic education.

The zone also recommended that the pre-vocational subjects shall constitute 50 per cent of the core subjects at JSS; the upliftment of religious studies to core and the inclusion of Islamiyya classes for married women as part of the mass literary programme; that science, technical and vocational education should be renamed and devoted to technical and vocational education only and that the importance of research and e-learning materials at tertiary level needs to be captured in the NPE.

The South-West consultative forum, among others, recommended the development of database for school age children to enhance a coordinated continuous assessment and it redefined the scope of early childhood/pre-primary education as " the care, protection, early stimulation and learning promoted in children from birth to six years in an early child care (ECC) centre and/or educational institution prior to their entering the primary school, to foster easy transmission from home to school." The zone also recommended that secondary education should be titled: Senior/higher secondary education and under special education, it advocates for the inclusion of hunters streets beggars, destitute, mentally or criminally ill, orphaned or abandoned and so forth, adding that "heads of education institutions shall have relevant professional training in education administration for them to be found appointable." The South-West zone also recommended that government at all levels shall set aside a sizeable percentage of their annual budgets to education financing and that each year, education budget shall take into account inflationary trend.

The report of the North Central zone shows that many issues of national importance were raised at the forum as its contribution towards the review of NPE. These issues are as follows: The NPE should corroborate the provisions of UBE Act 2004 and that adult and non-formal education programmes for adult and youth could constitute part of basic education but should be provided outside the primary and junior secondary school systems; government should be actively involved in the establishment and running of pre-primary schools; NPE should prescribe sanctions for government agencies/officials that issue licences/approval for substandard nursery/primary schools, common entrance examination into JSS1 should be retained and strengthened as automatic transition from primary to JSS might jeopadise quality and Arabic should be made a core subject in secondary school and should be compulsory for all students of Islamic studies.

Other recommendations made by the zone are that: NUC's proposal for a five year degree programme for teacher education be adopted and that training and retraining programme for practicing teachers should be addressed as a basic issue and that primary education course should be made compulsory for all NCE teachers as a way of properly preparing them to teach primary school pupils. The other three zones also made interesting and useful recommendations all of which the newly constituted Core Technical Group will synthesise and write a draft policy document of the NPE.

While addressing the National Coordinating Committee which was attended by the Executive Secretary of UBEC, Professor Gidado Tahir; representative of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, representatives of Federal Ministry of Education, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Isiaka Oloyede; representative of NAPTAN, representative of NECO, Professor Tijani El-Miskin of the Nigeria Arabic Language Village, Ngala; representatives of Association of Proprietors of Private Schools and many others dignitaries from various parastatals of education and private bodies, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr. Aboki Zhawa, commended the leadership of NERDC for "this bold and innovative style of reviewing the 2004 edition of the NPE as this will go a long way in ensuring that a robust, all encompassing NPE will be produced," adding that NERDC has initiated a process of producing a people-owned NPE.