This year’s annual ritual of the results of West African School Certificate Examination expectedly evoked such low spirit all over the place. Indeed, the authorities, in analyzing the results, went as far as detailing the unprecedented and understandably disturbing number of candidates who secured five subjects including English language and Mathematics.

Specifying these two subjects was meant to re-emphasise the centuries-old standard of genuine secondary education and the attendant deterioration. In so doing, the picture portrayed was the worst ever. This is debatable in the sense that similar pictures in the past decades did not adequately convey the message.
Accordingly, the latest West African School Certificate Examination results should be viewed from the positive angle as the best to confront us with the level of destruction in our educational sector.

Still, to get the correct picture, we must ask the question of how did we get here, a situation in which almost every aspect of our education from primary to the university level is in ruins largely owing to misguided and self-destructive nationalism? Only this ultra nationalism can explain why and how we turned upside down the standard of education compared to the situation up to independence forty-nine years ago.

Since then, we have Nigerianised almost free air of life. In the beginning, those in charge of our education, strictly under government control and regulations were mainly properly trained educationists comprising Christian and Muslim missionaries aided with government grants. Down the line, government itself joined the yeoman task, with three different proprietors, more like philanthropists.

One thing marked out these three groups – their dedication exhibited not only through strict adherence to rules and regulations formulated by the government. On top of these was the very high standard which correspondingly pupils and students were not only encouraged but averagely compelled to aim at.
In any case, there was no room for commercial traders in our educational sector. And how strictly these rules were enforced. Aspiring private proprietors like Stephen Awokoya (Molusi College) Tai Solarin (Mayflower Grammar School) Nnandi Azikiwe (Lagos City College) Michael Ajasin (Imade College) did not stray from unemployment or want of any job, to establish secondary schools. Other public-spirited proprietors founded schools like Corona and Adrao International.

Those employed as teachers in these schools were graduates of mostly government-owned Teachers’ Training Colleges all over the country who imparted sound education to their pupils and went on later in life to serve the country in prominent positions. Noticeably, two of Nigeria’s past heads of governments – Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Shehu Shagari – were graduates of Teacher Training Colleges. Their own students later joined them in politics.
With their training in the technique of their profession, teachers of those days displayed job satisfaction and discharged their obligations to pupils in primary and secondary schools. Thereby, sound foundation was laid for pupils in preparing them for school and public examinations. Inspectors of Education were employed by the government to ensure not only qualified teachers but also their capability for the stipulated standard. Consequently, even university graduates still had to acquire professional teaching technique.

Inevitably, products of primary and secondary schools of those days were easily presumed for successful shot at the secondary school certificate examination. And why not? Apart from the professional teaching from which they benefited, certain subjects were essential parts of the syllabus and only passes in English language would guarantee success at secondary school certificate examination.

Therefore, how did it happen that certain subjects disappeared from national school syllabus and the stringent conditions for award in school certificate examinations were dropped? Yet, we all thought there would not be damaging consequences on our standard of education?
In those days of sound education, subjects like Dictation, Oral English, Writing, Hygiene and Nature Study were taught in schools. This is computer age and there is no time or need for handwriting.

If so, what happened to annual promotion examination in government and missionary schools, at primary and secondary schools, which in those days compelled pupils and students to review all their subjects seriously as promotion examinations approached?
Rather, these days, especially in government primary and secondary schools, pupils are mass-moved from one class to the next higher class without any examination. How can such unprepared or at best, ill-prepared pupils perform well at the West African School Certificate Examination?
Unlike those days when intending pupils had to write very competitive entrance examinations to secondary schools which would select the best from the lot, finalists in primary schools, whether willing or unwilling are routinely allocated to various government secondary schools. What can be expected from such pupils who did not sweat through any examination to be admitted to a secondary school? Total indifference to class work for six years in preparation for the school certificate examination.

If that were not bad enough, what would be the justification for awarding the West African School Certificate to a candidate who failed the subject of English Language? Of what value is such a certificate? In those days of grading the standard a candidate attained in a subject including English Language, the pride of such candidate was to record credit. To attain that standard, any candidate who scored A in nine subjects and recorded F (fail) in English Language automatically failed the entire examination.

The warning song rehearsed by school mates was “Fail in English, fail in all.” That alone exerted seriousness in every candidate until ultra nationalism came in and we suddenly realized that English is not our language. The effect is the very poor result annually recorded in the WAEC examinations.
In the days gone by, a candidate required at least credits in five subjects including English Language (to only apply) for admission to universities – without any guarantee of success. Such five subjects must be at a single sitting of an examination. What is the position today? Such credits can be from two sittings even if from two different examination bodies like WAEC and National Examination Council (NECO).

Such university admission requirement standard could only induce complacency in candidates preparing for WAEC or NECO secondary school certificate examination. That was the message best conveyed by the woeful results of this year’s WAEC examination.
This alarming state of our education has lately forced genuine, public-spirited figures to establish reputable secondary schools in various parts of the country. The fees are very high but only the products of such schools always shine at the WAEC, overseas Cambridge and SAT examinations.
Like everything Nigeria, this compelling situation has enabled profiteers, non-educationists and non-public spirited exploiters to invade the mess in our education, offering anything, anywhere and anyhow for primary and secondary education.