It is yet another season of moaning and deploring the poor results of our secondary school students in the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC). As has been the situation in the past few years, results of the latest May/June 2014 examination have again left all concerned Nigerians wringing their hands in frustration.
This year, according to results declared by the Head of WAEC National Office in Lagos, Mr. Charles Eguridu, only 520,425 candidates out of the 1,692,435 who sat for the examination obtained credits in five subjects and above, including English Language and Mathematics, which is the minimum required for admission to most courses in many of the nation’s universities. This figure is 31.28 per cent of those who sat for the examination, which means that the higher percentage of 68.82 may not find it easy to get places in the universities.
This poor result is a decline from those of the past two years. In 2012, only 38.81 per cent of those who sat for the examination obtained credit in five subjects and above, including Mathematics and English Language, while the figure for 2013 was 36.37 of those who took the examination, before this latest decline to 31.28.
Every instance of these poor results in recent years have led to renewed focus on the rot in secondary education in the country for a few weeks, and we from there move on to other issues, only to return to the topic when another set of dismal results are released for the November/December examination for private candidates.
One thing is certain. Education in Nigeria is in a serious crisis and all hands are needed on board to address it. Any attempt to arrest the drift to disaster in secondary education must, however, from necessity start from the situation at the primary education level, where the use of unqualified teachers is quite rampant throughout the country. This, it must be said, is one of the major causes of life-long poor performance in education, because the primary education level is the one at which the foundation of sound educational performance is laid. It is the level at which students are expected to develop basic language and numerical skills on which other levels of education will be built.
A situation in which students pass through primary school, and even secondary school, in some instances without developing the ability to understand, read and write in English Language is disastrous because this is the skill that is needed before a child can understand all other subjects that will be taught at all other levels of education.
Apart from the qualifications of teachers is also their commitment to the profession. Many of those who take to the teaching profession in Nigeria mostly do so for want of better jobs. This is not because they do not really enjoy teaching or see any value in the profession. It is partly due to the scant regard and attention to school teachers in the country. Teachers are generally poorly paid. In some states, teachers in schools are paid lower salaries than those with similar qualifications in the ministries. This leaves the teachers poorly motivated and more interested in doing the very minimum that they can in the classrooms, while devoting most of their energy to their personal businesses.
Again, there is more often than not, inadequacy of teachers in most secondary schools. Many students pass through six years of secondary school education having teachers for critical subjects such as Mathematics for only two or three of the six grades of secondary school education. How, indeed, can such students hope to pass the subject? It goes without saying that such a subject will remain a mystery to the affected students for life.
There is also, of course, the problem of a dearth of teaching facilities such as laboratories. Where they exist, there are no chemicals and other materials that are needed for important experiments. The teachers, themselves, are distracted and have little faith or confidence in their ability to make a difference in the lives of their students.
And the parents? There is little time to supervise the work of their children in the rat race to make a living in the country. The levels of government that have the responsibility to make education available to the youths are more interested in politicking and sharing the national cake without as much as a thought for the coming generation of our youths.
Our corporate bodies? Please, leave most of them out when talking about education. They are more interested in being mentioned when talking about dancing, acting, singing and film making. Not for most of them the boring grind of trying to contribute to the lives of youths. They will rather deal with the film stars who can help them to sell their goods. Yet, it is the products of our failed educational system that will not allow these corporate fatcats and the stars they are promoting to sleep with their two eyes closed.
What of the students themselves? They are too busy facebooking, twittering, yahooing and linking in to care about their studies and their future. Can you blame them? They are all living witnesses to the seeming worshipping of musicians and other entertainers in the country, and the millions of naira they are making from their craft, while holders of doctorate degrees are pounding the streets in search of non-existent jobs.
What all these mean is that we are all to blame for the poor WAEC results. There appears to be a grand conspiracy against the youths and all stakeholders have to strategise on how to redress the situation.
If Nigerian students are to have a chance to compete and excel in our increasingly competitive world, all hands must be on deck to put education back on track.
Let the government lead the way while the core education professionals, parents, Corporate Nigeria and the students themselves follow with a firm commitment to ending the circle of embarrassingly poor results in the SSCE
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