Reversing the trend of poor results in public schools

By Sulaimon Olanrewaju

Dr. Sam Egwu, Education MinisterThe performance of Nigerian students in recent public examinations is an indication that all is not well with the nation’s education system. In the 2009 West African Examination Council-organised examination, only 14.2 per cent of the candidates was able to record credits in five or more subjects including English and Mathematics. Similarly, in the examination organised by the National Examination Council for the same year, just 7.2 per cent of the candidates had credits in five or more subjects including English Language and Mathematics. The story was not different for the National Business and Technical Education Board (NABTEB), where only 15.9 per cent of the candidates had credits in five or more subjects.

The dismal performance was not restricted to just one area of the country as areas which had prided themselves in good performance over the years also recorded miserable results in the year under review. In the South West, known for its impressive performance, the story in the current year was a clear departure from the erstwhile pattern. In WAEC, 5 per cent of the candidates from Oyo State recorded credits in five or more subjects. In Ogun State, it was 9 per cent, Osun State recorded 6 per cent, Ekiti State had 31 per cent, Ondo State had 22 per cent while Lagos State had 13 per cent.

For NECO, the performance of the South West states are as follows; Oyo 12 per cent, Osun 10 per cent, Ondo 7 per cent, Ekiti 11 per cent, Ogun 21 per cent and Lagos 18 per cent. The performance in NABTEB goes thus; Oyo 9 per cent, Osun 4 per cent, Ondo 18 per cent, Ekiti 18 per cent, Ogun 13 per cent and Lagos 6 per cent.

At a press conference addressed last week in Ibadan to call the attention of the Nigerian populace to the worrying development and to highlight the strategies being deployed by his state to arrest the situation, Professor Taoheed Adedoja, Oyo State commissioner for education said the poor outing of Nigerian youths called for concerted efforts of all stakeholders in education.

According to him, if the situation was not nipped in the bud, it portended grave danger not just for the youth but the nation as a whole.

His words, “How can Nigeria catch up with the world where only 15.9 per cent of its students that sat for the 2009 NABTEB examination had the required credit passes? Does this not indicate our neglect of technical education that is the hub for technological development?”

Adedoja added that, “The overall result for South West states and the national average performance is disturbing, and a national disaster indeed. If we cannot declare a state of emergency in the power sector, then we ought to declare a state of emergency in education sector, going by this trend which holds grave implications for the private and public sectors, with attendant social, economic and political consequences for the nation in general.”

Talking about the social consequences of the mass failure, Adedoja mentioned increasing crime rate, youthful restlessness, hooliganism, prostitution and early teenage pregnancy.

The commissioner said, “This administration is convinced that as leaders we cannot afford to sleep anymore; we have to start not only to talk about the education of our children, but be seen to take radical stance to provide students-friendly school environment in order to change the trend.”

He said consequently the state government had mapped out some strategies to redress the development.

The strategies, which he implied would work for any state that embraced it include organising a mock examination for students in SS3 class to know those who are ready and help those that are not.

His words, “Oyo State is to register over 50,000 candidates in our public senior secondary schools for the 2010 WAEC examination, and we are prepared to avoid the mass failure experienced in 2009. The mock examination is to be conducted by an independent examination agent in November this year, to identify students that are ready to sit for the examination and support those who are deficient through additional intervention strategies with several academic programmes in our secondary schools. Academic school debates, reading competitions, all-year round quiz competitions in virtually all subjects in secondary schools, application of computers, internet, e-learning and ICT will be given priority by the ministry with the support from the private sector.”

The commissioner also said that the state government had perfected plans to recruit more teachers to shore up the number of teachers in the state with a view to ensuring that the students were adequately prepared for all the examinations they would take.

“In view of the dearth of teachers in English, Yoruba, Mathematics, Biology, Physics and Chemistry in our schools,” he said, “arrangements have been concluded by the Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) to employ 1,200 graduate and NCE teachers in these subjects which hopefully will reverse the poor results and performances in subsequent public examinations.”

Adedoja also said that the state government had taken the issue of training and re-training of teachers very seriously in order to ensure that they were on top of situations in their areas of teaching so that the students would be given up to date information. He stated that the state was collaborating with the National Teachers Institute to teach 5828 teachers in the state as part of the programme for the realisation of the Education for All goal. He added, “By conducting a monitoring exercise, a number of follow up capacity building and leadership training programmes will be mounted to ensure the effective paradigm shift.”

As a way of ensuring that secondary schools in the state were properly supervised, Adedoja said the state government had embarked on the volunteer supervisors scheme. According to him, the ministry had engaged 68 retired educationists and retired principals who had been empowered to supervise schools in their neighbourhood with a view to stemming the tide of teachers and principals not getting to school early enough, not teaching at the appropriate time or engaging in illegal activities within the school premises. The volunteers, who would report directly to the ministry, were to ensure that the state secondary schools were returned to the old days when they were able to produce not mere academic stars but all round stars.

He also said that the state government had approved the resuscitation of School Based Management Committee (SBMC) for its secondary schools.

He explained that “the SBMC is a structure representing all key stakeholders who are willing and able to improve the management of the school to ensure improved teaching and learning for the children in the school.”

He pointed out that the school system would be strengthened through the involvement of the community in the management of the schools.

He also said that the private sector would be encouraged to collaborate with the state government in empowering the schools.

As he put it, “If truly we are desirous of qualitative and better education in the state and if the current trend of poor performance of students in examinations is to be reversed, government should not be left alone with this challenge. Parents, teachers, old students associations and the general public must be ready to play vital roles. If the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in power generation, agriculture, health, housing, roads and other infrastructure development is practised, PPP in education is most desirable at this time.”

The commissioner was optimistic that with the steps the state had taken, it would record a better performance in public examinations in ensuing years. He also expressed the hope that if other states would also adopt the strategies, the nation would reverse the trend of mass failure in public examinations.