OPERATION REACH ALL SECONDARY SCHOOLS

The Operation Reach All Secondary Schools (ORASS) is one of the key initiatives designed to resolve the crisis of opportunism that had bedeviled the education sector.

Reaching all secondary schools has become necessary because of prevailing notion that the products of the education sector are of poor quality, and therefore branded inadequate for local employment and global competitions.

The roots of the crisis were traced to poor quality teachers, inadequate facilities, lack of instructional materials, negative values of students, poor organization and management of schools and inadequate supervision to mention a few. Since a nation’s economic, social, political well-being depends on the quality of education people receive, and as the secondary level is midway between primary and tertiary levels, the need to restructure and strengthen the secondary level has become very compelling.

1. Once this level is strengthened, the output to the universities will be more qualified to face higher learning and the problems being experienced at the tertiary level will be minimized.
2. The education sector through its improper structuring has rendered some of the departments that should be the watch dogs of the system ineffective. The Federal Inspectorate Service’s inability to control quality assurance activities as it affects teaching and learning in schools below tertiary level has impacted poorly on the sector.
   The story of FIS (Federal Inspectorate Service) beginning from 1973, up to the present time has been riddled with unenforceable legal framework, unfavourable policies regarding funding and structure and these in many ways have affected its vision and therefore its operational methods thereby rendering it a lame-duck.
3. Out of the 11,000 listed secondary schools based on the 2006 school census, the Inspectorate Service in a period of 3 years inspected only about 500 schools representing a paltry percent of recorded schools.
4. It is the determination to drive the vision of providing quality and functional education that can resuscitate a system equitable of producing well branded products that has given rise to the Operation Reach All Schools (ORASS).

The main objectives for ORASS were:

1. To diagnose the causes of the crises in the nation’s Education System.
2. To establish and document the state of infrastructures in the schools.
3. To take stock of the curricula contents, instructional materials, teachers qualifications and quality of curricula delivery in all schools.
4. To reach all secondary schools in terms of academic achievement in line with the minimum standards set out in the National Policy on Education (NPE).
5. As a way forward, the Inspectorate Service, charged with the responsibility of visiting all schools used various Task Teams to handle the project from the planning stage, to training, to the inspection of all secondary schools to writing and presentation of the report. These teams are the central working team, planning and publicity, finance and accounts, monitoring and technical. Besides the teams, a Standing Committee is also available to handle other various aspects of the project.
6. An important aspect of the project was personnel. As a way of lending, credibility to the tasks most stakeholders in education were involved. The personnel included serving Inspectors, retired and fit Inspectors, parents, development partners, civil society and independent observers. A total number of 11,000 Inspectors enrolled and each team was made up of 5 persons, each team was led by a serving and experienced Inspector.
7. To ensure that all Inspectors had common knowledge and capability to implement the set activity and produce viable and creditable results, a Train the Trainer approach was arranged. The training took place in two stages; National and State Zonal. The Inspectors were trained on the entire school Evaluation concept.
8. At the end of the exercise, data was collected, collated, and is presently being analyzed.
9. Results and benefits of ORASS:  For once in the history of education delivery, 11,000 inspectors visited and inspected 14,543 secondary schools.
10. With the introduction of school rating, proprietors will now compete to ensure high rating of their schools to avoid depleting the schools enrolment and possible sanctions.
11. There will be increased activity among the regulating agencies at all levels as Inspectors will be motivated through renewed status.
    Above all, accurate figures of enrolment of both students and teachers will be available, the position of Infrastructure will be provided at a glance, and teaching and learning would be adequately evaluated. These and many other findings will inform our policy objectives in planning for the future of secondary education in the country.