The results of last year’s November/December Senior Secondary
Certificate Examinations recently released by the National Examinations
Council (NECO), has once again exposed the precarious state of education
in Nigeria. The registrar of the 13-year-old examination body,
Professor Promise Okpala, who announced the performance of the
candidates said only 33 per cent of the 83, 755 candidates who sat for
the English Language paper passed at the required credit level. By the
result, given the condition that only candidates who obtain credit
passes in five subjects including English Language and Mathematics could
gain admission to universities in Nigeria, only 25, 628 of the
candidates could achieve their dream this year.
Many young men and women who sat the NECO December examinations have
been repeatedly disappointed owing to failure in one or two of the core
subjects. This is more so for science students who may not be
particularly good at the English language. While the performance in
Mathematics, another general core subject, was above the 50 per cent
mark, it was not so in the sciences. In Physics, less than one per cent
of the 35,000 who sat the examination passed at credit level.
Mathematics did not give us a cause for cheer. Only 15 per cent passed
while in Chemistry it was 35 per cent.
If the results had been inconsistent with the pattern in recent
years, it would not call for consternation, but results from NECO and
the sister examination body, the West African Examinations Council
(WAEC), over the past five years show that there has been a steady
decline in the quality of education offered at all levels.
The nation was first jolted to this reality when, in 2009, 98 per
cent of the 234,682 candidates failed to make five credits, including
English and Mathematics. Mind-boggling was the level of malpractices as
236,613 cases were recorded that year. It was expected that all
stakeholders would be pushed to action and achieve a reversal of the
trend within years. The latest results have confirmed that not much has
been achieved.
The failure of our teeming youths is the failure of government.
Things have been kept at the same level, little has been done to upgrade
facilities in public secondary schools and make teaching attractive for
prospective students and applicants. The profession has become a
fall-back for those who failed to gain the attention of other employers.
Private schools of other shapes and descriptions have since sprung up
to fill the vacuum. Even in this wise, there is an obvious failure of
supervision and monitoring that has also led to poor performance in
external examinations.
Desperate students have thus resorted to abusing and subverting the
process. Sometimes aided by parents and teachers, especially in private
schools, the candidates do everything to have advance copies of
examination papers or pay others to either sit for or assist them in the
examination centres. No nation hoping to bridge the development gap
between the first and third world could afford such neglect of the
education sector.
We call on governments at federal, state and local levels to take
urgent, coordinated and concerted steps in adequately funding education.
We must go beyond holding workshops and jamborees ostensibly to review
laws and rules regulating education in the country. As a first step,
funding must improve. While the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has recommended that all governments
allocate a minimum of 26 per cent of their budgets to education, the
Federal Government has consistently voted below 10 per cent in the past
13 years.
Policy inconsistency resulting from change of ministers has not
helped matters. Eight ministers have taken charge in the ministry since
1999. Professors Tunde Adeniran, Babalola Borishade, Fabian Osuji, Dr.
Chinwe Obaji, Oby Ezekwesili, Igwe Aja Nwachukwu, Sam Egwu and Ruqayattu
Rufai came up sometimes with contrasting policy thrusts.
It must be realised that development in all sectors is hinged on the
quality of education and no country can advance without paying special
attention to the needs of the youth.
