The National Policy on Education, which dictates what should obtain in the education system, states that Nigeria runs six years of primary education, three years of junior secondary, three of senior secondary education and four years of tertiary education.
The 6-3-3-4 system was introduced in the 80s to replace the 6-5-4 (six years of primary, five of secondary (two years of Higher School Certificate), and four years of tertiary education. In 2004, when the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act was passed, the Federal Government made the first nine years of basic education – consisting six years of primary and three years of junior secondary – compulsory for all school aged children. This shows that for over 30 years, the government has stipulated a policy of six years of primary education.
However, in practice, not all children complete six years of primary education – particularly those enrolled in private schools. Ironically, the practice is not new and has been on for more than two decades. It is common place for children to transit from primary school to secondary school after Primary Five. This leads to the question whether Nigeria should review the number of years children should spend in primary school.
Mrs Ann Ezuoke, proprietor of Annawhite School in Aba, Abia State, said the practice of schools using the curriculum of the class one year ahead to prove their alleged superiority contributed to why many schools do not run Primary Six.
“The problem started with the introduction of ‘A step ahead’ system. When a Basic one is using basic two books and so on, what do you expect?”
The major reason many private schools do not run Primary Six is because of parental pressure.
Alhaji Wasiu Adumadeyi, Lagos State Chairman of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), said in an interview that parents pressure schools into ending the primary school education in Primary Five and that most of them are in a hurry to see their wards grow up.
“The reason parents are not subscribing to Primary Six is because they are in a hurry. Why we got to this level of desperation is because parents want their children to go to school early, get to the university early, graduate and start working early to start bringing money for them. They pressure schools to graduate their children from Primary Five and if they do not, they withdraw their wards to other schools. This happens, especially in schools that do not have a strong footing. But schools that are well established insist on running Primary Six,” he said.
Mr. Babayemi Olubukola, proprietor of Glorious Brighter Future International Academy, Abuja, said his school had to back down from insisting on Primary Six when parents began to leave with their wards.
“At a time we were stamping our feet not to allow pupils in Basic (Primary) Five to sit for entrance examination into Federal Government colleges.
“We found out we were losing relationship and patronage, because they go elsewhere to register their children and even when they don’t pass, they still secure admission for their wards through the back door,” he said.
Babayemi recounted one of his many experiences with parents on the issue: “A particular case got me very sad. Some years ago, a particular parent, a pastor for that matter, wanted his daughter to write the common entrance examination into Unity School. l discussed with the father that this particular child has not measured up, and should be allowed to read up to Basic Six. He told me that he would go somewhere else and register her and she would pass. ln order to maintain the relationship, l registered her and she failed woefully. She got 76, and the cut off was 130. At the end this girl was admitted.”
To keep his parents, Babayemi now runs a junior secondary school so that pupils can transit at whatever level their parents are comfortable with – even though he said he advises them to complete Primary Six.
“Some take to our advice – even up to current session that started few weeks ago –and their children are reading Primary Six. Some who don’t take, and still wish their children to remain with us are moved to JSS1, while some attend other schools, including the Federal Government colleges,” he said.
Mrs Abiodun Oyeyemi, CEO, Rehoboth Foods, said parents move their children quickly to reduce the financial burden of paying fees in Primary Six.
“Most parents don’t allow their children pass through Primary Six because of school fees,” she said.
Mr Samuel Kunle-Oluwatobi, a cleric, said children are moved to secondary school because many rationalised that the work is covered in Primary Four and Five.
“At Primary Five, the primary school syllabus have adequately prepared the child for secondary school…if the child is a grade A pupil, especially if the child actually passed the common entrance exam for admission to secondary school,” he said.
Should Primary Six stay on?
Despite parental preferences, many educationists do not agree that children should exit primary school from Primary Five. They told The Nation that there was nothing wrong with the policy of six years of primary education.
Adesuyi Afolabi Omonike of Elias International College, Lagos, said should the government reduce primary education to six years, schools would start graduating pupils from Primary Four.
“Then people will start moving their children from Primary Four again. You cannot satisfy some people. They want to fly their kids as high as possible,” said Omonike, responding to the question posed by this reporter to members of a group, Concerned Parents and Educators (CPE) initiative, which discusses and addresses issues in the education sector.
Babayemi said Primary Six, not Five, was preparatory class for secondary education.
“The Primary six syllabus is a loaded syllabus comprising items from JSS one, two and three syllabuses. A child that goes through Primary Six will have his foundation well laid. On entering into secondary school, they start moving from what is already known, to unknown. By so doing, the child will be confident to face challenges and enjoy learning,” he said.
Mr Francis Fasuyi, principal, Mind Builders High School, CBD, Ikeja told The Nation that the difference between Primary Five and Six was significant and made a whole lot of difference in how well pupils performed or adjusted to secondary school life.
“The level of maturity is different; the level of readiness is different, so many things are different. You can’t compare Ghanaian students with Nigerian students. They must pass through Primary Six. That is why they have been leading us in the Senior School Certificate Examination for some years.”
Fasuyi added that his school only allows pupils that completed six years of primary education to sit for its scholarship examination.
“We decided that children that go through Primary Six, we know they will be OK, let us give them opportunity for scholarship. Those in Primary Five if they are given that scholarship, we are not doing justice to those who go through Primary Six because that one year difference is really giving them something ahead,” he said.
Mrs Sonia Ivie, a management consultant and trainer, who runs the Gherf Wyshied Educational Consult, said six years of primary education was the standard internationally, so children leave the education system mature and well adjusted.
“I believe the government had a purpose for which they advocated that children should finish from Primary Six at which they should be about 12 years old before going into secondary school. Ideally, if that is properly implemented, the children should be about 18 years before they finish secondary school which is normally the right standard everywhere in the world before they go into higher institution. By then it is believed that they would have become citizens, a bit more matured to cope with the rigours of higher institutions,” she said.
Effect of not completing Primary Six
Though many parents like to rush, many educators say exiting primary school after four or five years was retrogressive and did not help the academic, psychological, or emotional growth of the affected children.
Adelabu Dolapo Bola, a Nigerian researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, said Nigerian pupils are usually made to repeat classes when they transit to schools in other countries because of poorly developed education system.
“Do you know that all other basic education institutions in developed nations always put Nigerian pupils a class or two backward whenever they join their school? The reason being that Nigerian basic education focus mainly on academic performance not the psychological, emotional stability and the brain creativity aspects. Meanwhile, some private schools in Nigeria make this worse. They will load a five-year old child with lots of assignments, private lessons…All the time needed for a child’s self-reasoning and development is channelled to a step ahead module or syllabus. A lot of malfunctioning is happening in Nigeria and we are accepting it as normal. This bleeds my heart,” wrote Mrs Adelabu in the CPE group in response to questions asked by this reporter.
Fasuyi said pupils that come to his school after Primary Six were more likely to adapt to the secondary school setting than those who left in Primary Five.
“Those who came from Primary Six are more adapting than Primary Five. For some of those from Primary Five to copy note is a problem; you have to force and detain them to copy note,” he said.
Mrs Dideolu Adekogbe, Lead Consultant, Florish Gate Consult, said not completing Primary Six has a negative effect on children’s development.
“Secondary school education is tasking. It is beyond literacy and numeracy. It is something overwhelming for children not to be properly prepared. Most parents over prepare children for the common entrance examination. They get private teachers to teach them. They get so much support and get involved in rote learning that they pass several common entrance examinations in flying colours. Then once they get into secondary school, all that support stops. They are left on their own. The worst is that parents send some to the boarding house. Suddenly, the children who were used to one teacher handling all the subjects, suddenly have to deal with many teachers. This leaves them to struggle in class; they become frustrated, then you see behavioural problems set in – coupled with psychological changes of adolescence,” she said.
Mrs Yemi Bakre-Bajo, a teacher, lamented that it was difficult for underage children to cope in the boarding house.
“Apart from being half-baked in terms of jumping all the things they will still learn in Primary Five and Six, those children who are under age find it difficult to take care of themselves and their things. While at home it is the house help that does all the chores and they will bring these children to school and expect hostel managers to perform magic on them. When working as a house mistress, I always have extra dozens of pants, extra uniforms even went as far as washing their clothes,” she said.
Government/school
owners’ roles
Stakeholders believe government needed to enforce the policy for it to be effective in schools.
Mrs Sonia Ivie said: “The major challenge is the fact that there has not been enough enforcement to ensure that private schools comply with the standard. If the private schools have not been complying with this policy, it is not because the policy itself is ineffective; it is because there have not been stringent measures to ensure that defaulters are brought to book.
“Not all private schools default in this area. In the school where I worked, Greenspring School, they ensured that no child left without completing Year Six for secondary school by which time they would have turned 12 in Form 1,” she said.
Mr Adumadeyi said government could also monitor compliance by refusing to admit pupils from private schools that did not complete Primary Six into public secondary schools.
As a body, Adumadeyi said NAPPS had started sensitizing parents on the need to allow their wards complete six years of primary education.
“We are now doing a lot of sensitization for our members to learn the implication of jumping a class so they insist on the policy in their schools. We are encouraging them to hold seminars for parents and invite educational psychologists who can tell them the negative implication of rushing children,” he said.
Some educators, like Mrs Dideolu Adekogbe, believe government is not enforcing the policy because many directors in the ministry also run schools and use speedy completion of primary education to woo parents.
“The nine-year basic education already covers six years of primary and three of junior secondary education. It is already a national policy. Why is government not enforcing it? Because many of the policy directors have schools and want students, they won’t enforce the policy,” she said.
However, the Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Lagos State Ministry of Education, Mr Adesegun Ogundeji, said the government had directed schools to comply or face the law.
“By not running Primary Six class, the private schools are trampling on the National Policy on Education which stipulates six years of primary education under the 6-3-3-4 system. That is a crimial offence.
“I am awqare that the government has directed and reminded operators of the need to comply or be face-to-face with the dictates of the law,” he said.
Mrs Adekogbe and other stakeholders have started a movement called Bring Back Primary Six to stop the practice of sending immature children into secondary school.
“Our plan is to hold a sensitization programme on November 14 for parents, teachers, school associations, government, private sector to tell them what they are doing is wrong. We will also visit schools after wards to address parents and tell them of the dangers of not doing Primary Six. If we all get it right, nobody will be asking to employ certain age of graduates,” she said.
