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SSCE failures: Let’s declare an emergency
With Wale Sokunbi
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Let’s forget the intrigues and shenanigans of the Nigerian
political landscape, our unsafe skies and homes and our even
more treacherous roads and focus, for a change this week,
on an issue that should be of great concern to all Nigerians,
especially the parents of 6.4 million students in our secondary
schools.
That issue is the problem of the terrible results obtained
by students in the 2006 West African Examinations Council
(WAEC) and National Examinations Council Examinations (NECO)
examinations. The poor figures released by the two examination
bodies for the 2006 examination year are indeed, worrisome.
Mr Godwin Uzoigwe, Head of National Office of WAEC, on September
18, 2006, announced that only 177,800 out of the 1,184,384
students who took the 2006 May/June WAEC Examinations passed,
having scored credits in five subjects including Mathematics
and English Language, which is the requisite qualification
for university admission in Nigeria.
A quick calculation indicates that over a million students,
about 85 per cent of those who sat for the examinations, failed
as their results cannot guarantee them admission into the
university.
The success rate in the NECO examination was only a little
better. Professor Dibu Ojerinde, NECO Registrar, put those
who passed 2006 NECO examination at 251,385 of the 937,457
candidates who wrote the examinations.
Although students appeared to fare better in this examination
than at WAEC examinations, the whopping figure of about 686,032
students who failed the examination is distressing, to say
the least.
The case of Sokoto State, in particular, is deserving of a
declaration of an education emergency as only 6.98 per cent
of its students had five credits in NECO, indicating a 93.2
per cent failure rate.
When these disheartening results are juxtaposed with the amount
of money that has been committed to the teaching of those
who failed to make the required results by their parents and
the government, the billions of naira spent on purchasing
examinations forms, the efforts of their teachers and the
huge investment in logistics by the examination bodies to
enable the students sit for the examinations, the colossal
loss that these failures represent, becomes more glaring.
Now, it is very sad and disturbing that students who spend
six good years in a secondary school come out with such sorry
results. This spate of woeful results has been recurring over
the years and should elicit an intervention by all stakeholders
in the education sector.
The best way to go about resolving this problem is to determine
the reasons why pupils no longer find it easy to pass examinations
for which we presume they have been prepared.
Many reasons can be deduced for these mass failures. Key among
these is the attitude of students to their studies and the
lifestyle choices of many of today’s youths.
Unlike in the past, when many students’ best friends
were their novels, most of today’s students have no
use for reading outside their school textbooks. These students,
instead, prefer to spend endless hours in front of television
sets, watching mostly foreign movies, and devoting a disproportionate
amount of time to browsing the internet, not for any useful
purposes as one would expect, but to search for chat partners
with whom they spend endless hours in idle chatting for no
useful purpose.
Most of these internet chats are carried out in what is now
called “text language” which has no respect at
all for spelling, grammar and concord, and which many students
carry on to their examination scripts, to their peril. Beyond
the failure to read widely to improve their understanding
and usage of English Language, which is the key to understanding
all subjects, is the growing lackadaisical attitude of students
to their studies. For reasons that are not very clear, today’s
students exhibit an undue overconfidence that was not common
among students of yesteryears.
Conversations I had with a group of parents recently revealed
what I had earlier realised – that today’s parents
are more worried and stressed up about their children’s
academic performances than the children themselves, who often
appear unconcerned and actually believe that their parents
make far too much fuss about the need to perform very well
in their examinations, than is necessary.
Apart from this category of “don’t worry, mum”
students are those who appear to have succumbed to the notion
that they cannot pass public examinations, hence the resort
to special centres and extra-legal arrangements to pass by
all means, which sometimes fail, leading to resounding failures
in these examinations.
We also need to address the quality of teaching going on in
many of our public schools. Oftentimes, adequate numbers of
teachers for important subjects like Mathematics and Physics
are not available year round. Students are not being taught
the step-by step, methodical approach to their studies.
Instead, in many schools, including some private ones, teachers
are only available in the latter half of the term when students
are then rushed through the topics and straight into the examination
halls.
This method of teaching can only entrench in students the
idea that they can always rush through their studies at the
last minute and still “manage” to pass. It can
never produce excellent results, and is sure to boomerang
into poor performance, sooner or later. The idea of reading
for knowledge acquisition is not entrenched in students who
now only read for examinations.
Another glaring problem is that of unavailability of laboratories
and failure to provide them with required materials.
Teachers, who are supposed to imbue in students the zeal to
excel are also often unexcited about their jobs and they go
on to pass this disinterest, possibly borne of poor remuneration,
to their students.
Another problem is the over-reliance of some students on what
is called expo- by which is meant possibility of having access
to the examination scripts before the date of examination,
which does not always happen.
There have also been complaints that examination questions
are not always based on the Senior Secondary School Examination
(SSCE) syllabus, which may really not be tenable, as some
students still manage to pass these examinations, and very
well too.
Whatever may be the causes of the lacklustre performance of
our students in SSCE examinations, it is important that the
Federal and State Governments and other concerned stakeholders
take a very serious view of the problem with the view to finding
a solution to it.
Since the purpose for setting up these examination bodies
is not just to collect thousands of naira from students for
forms, it is important than concerted efforts are made to
do everything that is necessary to improve students’
performance in the examinations.
Our schools should be adequately monitored to ensure that
teaching is going on as expected and that books, libraries
and laboratory equipment are available.
Teachers, also, should be well motivated with improved welfare
packages, so that they can inculcate in students the zeal
to excel in academics.
A situation in which 85 per cent of students presented for
an examination fail to have the required marks is unacceptable
and should be redressed. If we have to declare a state of
emergency in our education sector, so be it.
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