The Minister of Education, Dr Morufu Olatunji Alausa, has come up with a proposal to alter the current 9-3-4 Nigerian education system and place the three-year senior secondary school level under the Universal Basic Basic Education Commission (UBEC), SaharaReporters can authoritatively report.
This came up at the 2025 Extra-ordinary National Council on Education meeting held at the
Exclusive Serene Hotel in Abuja on Thursday, February 6, 2025.
SaharaReporters learnt that Alausa, appointed by President Bola Tinubu in October 2024, to the federal education ministry, put forward the proposal at the 2025 Extra-ordinary National Council on Education meeting in Wuye, Abuja.
SaharaReporters gathered that one of the key motives behind the proposal to place the Senior Secondary school level under UBEC is to allocate more funds to the commission, which sources allege that Tinubu’s appointees are plotting to embezzle.
Some of the inside sources at the deliberation confirmed to SaharaReporters that the education minister was insistent on implementing the new proposal to favour the UBEC Executive Secretary, Aisha Garba, even though state Commissioners of Education expressed their reservations at the strategic meeting.
President Tinubu appointed Ms Garba, as the new Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission in December 2024, replacing Hammid Bobboyi who spent many years at the commission.
“The body language of the minister and all his efforts are to just empower UBEC against the Nigerian state. He is proposing an increased funding for UBEC, all in a bid to push his agenda,” a top source revealed to SaharaReporters on Thursday.
The minister in his remarks suggested that a new system of education be adopted from 9-3-4 currently being run which covers for 9 years basic education from Primary 1 to Junior School 3, then 3 years from Senior School 1 to SS3 and then university, SaharaReporters was told.
“What he wants to do now is to reduce SS1 to SS3 to basic education, eliminating that preparatory rule of SS1 to SS3. The change of system from 6-3-3-4 to 9-3-4 was challenging and now that schools are adapting, the education minister wants to make another sudden change.
“Most commissioners of education that spoke in the meeting were against the decision but the Minister went ahead to say the proposal is adopted. This proposal was never discussed or even made as an agenda for the meeting,” one of the delegates informed SaharaReporters.
“The minister wants to expand the scope of UBEC despite accusing the commission of non-performance on assumption of his office in their briefing.
“The minister now has interest in UBEC after changing the head of the place and he wants to push more resources to the place at the expense of the children of the poor,” another source lamented.
SaharaReporters was further told that Alausa is rumoured to be preparing for the Lagos State Governorship race and “he wants to compromise our education system for his political ambition.”
“This is another policy somersault in education as the new minister is confused. The state commissioners of education’s efforts to save the education sector were resisted by the Minister for Education.
“Another experiment for the education sector as new minister proposes a change and he is in a hurry to implement an agenda that is anti-masses.
“The body language of the minister and all his efforts are to just empower UBEC against the Nigerian state. He is proposing increased funding for UBEC all in a bid to push his agenda,” another source at the meeting revealed.
