Govt explains why male, female students will sit separately in public schools

The Bauchi state Commissioner for Education, Mr Aliyu Tilde, on Friday said the state government had concluded plans to separate male and female students in secondary schools in the state.

He stated this while addressing newsmen after the State Executive Council (SEC) meeting.

Tilde, however, said the move would only be executed whenever and wherever it was possible.

He explained that the idea was to address moral decadence, which had become prevalent among the pupils of secondary schools.

According to him, where it is possible, the students, including those in the private schools would be separated whereby the males would be attending their academic activities in one institution and the females in another separate institution.

The commissioner further explained that where they could not be separated completely, their seating arrangement would be in such a manner that the males would occupy one side of a classroom and the females at the other side of the classroom.

He gave an example where a class teacher caught two students while being taught in a classroom and were engaging in an immoral act.

“The most important thing is that we don’t want to undo the progress that we have made in the past on girl-child education by allowing this trend to continue.

“We came up with an idea, let us extend that 1978 abrogation of core education policy to cover our day secondary schools as well, wherever and whenever it is possible.

“Wherever is possible is talking about the geography and whenever is possible is talking about the distribution in time. That is, maybe it is possible tomorrow or not in terms of separating them completely.

“Wherever is possible is where perhaps we have two day secondary schools within the same vicinity, we’ll allocate one to girls and the other to boys,” he said.

Tilde also said that parents would be extremely happy about the move, adding that even those that were reluctant to allow their wards proceed to Senior Secondary School levels, would be encouraged to allow them go.

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He added that the policy has the potential to drive retention of students in schools more than before.

In another development, the commissioner announced that the state government had also approved the establishment of a College of Education in Dass Local Government Area of the state.

He said the institution would be named Dass College of Education until further notice when it would be named after a patriot from the area.