The bill’s passage was sequel to the consideration of a report by the Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary).

Senator Akon Eyakenyi (PDP – Akwa-Ibom South), in a presentation on behalf of the Committee’s Chairman, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam (APC – Yobe East), said the bill which has 33 clauses, seeks to repeal the existing Act on National Secondary Education Commission.

According to Eyakenyi, the bill when assented into law, would strengthen the legislative framework for the functioning of the Senior Secondary Education sector.

The lawmaker added that, “it also seeks to address the unfortunate abandonment of the Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria in terms of regulatory and financial intervention which hitherto has been extended to Primary and Junior Secondary Education through UBEC, and the Tertiary Education Institutions through TETFUND, NBTE, NCCE.”

“The bill also makes provision for the source of funding for the intervention and modalities for benefitting therefrom”, she said.

This was contained in the approval letter by the  Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu.

The letter was signed by Mr Adeleye Adeoye, Director of Polytechnic and Allied Institutions, Federal Ministry of Education and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna.

It indicated that the North East Zonal Office would be located at Federal Polytechnic Bauchi and North-West Zonal Office to be located at Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic, Katsina.

It added that the Zonal Office for South-South would be located at Auchi Polytechnic, Edo, while that of South West would be sited at Yaba College of Education Akoka, Lagos State.

South-East Zonal Office would be located at Institute of Management and Technology Enugu, while that of North Central would be located at Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa,.

NAN reports that the Executive Secretary of the board, Prof. Idris Bugaje, had promised to establish zonal offices to carry out advocacy on skills and interface with industries and other agencies in the zones on skill development.

This, according to him, will significantly help in equipping Nigerian youths with relevant skills.