The Executive Secretary of the Taraba Post Primary Schools Management Board, Alhaji Iliyasu Kirim, on Tuesday said the state government had set up an 11-man committee on the merger of junior and senior secondary schools.
The committee is headed by Mr Simon Danga while Alhaji Iliyasu Kirim would ill serve as secretary.
Kirim told newsmen in Jalingo that the decision to merge the schools was in compliance with the recent directive by the National Council on Education (NCE).
Under the new arrangement, he said, all junior and senior secondary schools would be managed by a principal and a vice principal respectively.
He said the old arrangement was partly responsible for the problem of shortage of teachers in the schools.
“When the policy was implemented, though partially, it made it very difficult for teachers to operate.
“A school that has four teachers now splits into two. One half goes with two, the other half goes with two and each half is expected to teach about 13 subjects.
“And if there is one mathematics teacher in the school and he goes to one half, the other half will be left with no mathematics teacher,” he said.
He, however, expressed optimism that the recent approval by the state government for the recruitment of 1000 teachers would complement the merger by providing enough teachers for the schools.
“We have over 400 secondary schools in Taraba at the moment. After the merger, the total number of schools will be in the region of 200.
“If you divide the 1000 teachers among the 200 schools, each school will get at least five teachers,” Kirim said.
