The Relationship Between Class Size And Secondary School Students Academic Performance In Geography
[A CASE STUDY OF ABEOKUTA-SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OGUN STATE]

The post-basic education sector (that is, senior secondary school) no doubt occupies a very critical and enviable place in Nigeria’s educational system in the sense that it is designed to prepare the students for entry into the tertiary level and as well groom those that cannot go further for the labour market.
    To meet these challenges, the sector should not be left as an orphan but be given to a responsible body that will manage and direct, control personnel, structure and the learning and teaching that have long eluded the sector.
    The Obayan committee report suggesting a merger of the basic education with secondary education will not only compound the enormous challenges of this sector but aggravate the already deteriorated and pitiable state of the secondary school system in Nigeria.
    The damages caused by absence of a regulatory body cannot be best solved through a merger.
    The recommendation that the schools (unity colleges) be scrapped and two be established in each Geo-political zone of the country and FCT can best be described as running away from confronting the real challenges of secondary education. This aspect of the report should be discarded in favour of an independent body to regulate and manage the secondary sector. Basic education should continue to function with structural adjustment under the existing body.
    Against Professor Pai Obanya’s observation that there are two many parastatals that are very unwieldy and that rather than creating a new one, efforts should only be made to make existing ones wieldy should not affect the secondary education sector that has suffered a very serious setback.
    This recommendation is unfortunate and cannot solve the monumental challenges of the sector. The problems engulfing secondary education in Nigeria are too enormous to be handled under an already overburdened entity of the Universal Basic Education Commission.
    Federal Ministry of Education is saddled with enough constitutional responsibilities just as the current UBEC has enough challenges to address.
    It is interesting to know that as far back as 1999 an Act of Government created “secondary school commission.”
    The frequent changes at the helm of affairs of our education have been a major setback to the take off of the commission. Between independence to date, Nigeria has had forty-seven Ministers of Education. For goodness sake, a good policy, enacted should be allowed to bail out the future of Nigerian’s children before being subjected to changes by frequent changes in the leadership of the ministry.
As a matter of fact the ministry of education has perpetually suffered from what could be described as ‘memory death’ which is responsible for jettisoning approved policies on ground.
    Secondary education is the sector that has been victim of employment embargo in virtually all the states of the federation and at the National level for a long time now. We all know that secondary school enrolment continues to grow with fewer hands to manage the sector.
    There is no dispute as to the need for a reform in this sector. Several committees have spoken. The time has come when a body – the much talked about secondary education commission which already had an Act (NSCE 199) of 1999 be put in place to regulate and control all activities including school population at this level of Education. The unwieldy approach to the provision of secondary education must stop if Nigeria is to realize objectives of the vision 2020.
    It is on record that out of the federal ministry of education headquarters’ capital budget of N24.2 billion between 2000 and 2006 over N18.7billion was appropriated for the 102 unity schools which account for only about 2% of the population of the students in the country and 80% of the total staff of the ministry.
    The Federal Government needs to be commended for her interventionary roles in the Basic and Tertiary Education Levels. However, the situation on the field calls for greater attention to the secondary education sector.
    It is worth noting that the JSS 1 – 3 of 2005 form part of those that graduated from the SSS in 2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively with dismal performances. This is a clear indication of garbage in garbage out, considering the sorrowful state of the secondary schools across the nation. The implication is that all segments of the secondary education sector should be under a centralized education body (SECONDARY EDUCATION COMMISSION).
    Federal Government must equally bring its might to secondary education sector through massive intervention in the provision of classrooms, teaching and learning facilities and professional salary for the retention of capable hands in the classroom.
    The federal government is strongly enjoined to come to the aid of the states through massive recruitment of qualified and competent teachers that can be best achieved through the secondary school commission in order to salvage the dearth of teachers in secondary schools which largely accounts for the yearly dismal performance of our studies in WASSCE/SSCE/NABTEB in the country.
    Federal government political will and genuine intervention through the establishment of a vibrant secondary schools commission is the only apparent solution that can redeem the orphan status of secondary education in Nigeria.