Bringing the best out of our SSCE/WAEC Candidates begins by eradicating special examination centres.
If our secondary school students must once more excel, aside from other factors that are unfortunately contributing to their lacklustre paerformances in recent years, all the special centers should no-longer have accreditation for creating special centers or affiliate with other educational agencies. This may not go down well with many people, but the truth shall remain the truth and untouched.
It is with immense tragedy, running races inside of me, as I write the positive outcome of students of my country. Having been through various centers, schools, and particularly having held different conversations with students, one thing that continues to bother me is the rapid decline of our quality education and the fast declining zeal in the minds of our kids.
The recent malady occupying our university students today is not a thing that became part of their lives in the early days of their university. It all startedt from their days of secondary school, bad results, poor educational preparation, inability to pass exams well. The question now is: Is it the school's fault, or the student or perhaps the environment?
Recent results have all that I need not say, WAEC/GCE/JAMB. It is a known fact that their minds are away from academics, but only a little few not waivering but still maintains the true act of education. And this is because various alternatives have been created to alter the only way to pass through exams.
To buttress this point, many researches have been conducting research to understand the level of decline on reasonable standard of previous examination year in the works of Professor U. N Ngwagah, “A decade of candidates performance, in NECO/SSCE, particularly in mathematics. One extracted quote had stated thus!
Unfortunately, what is obtainable from the examination bodies is far below the expectation in this era of ICT.
They keep the information as classified as possible. The scanty percentage details given do not portray the true situation (NECO, 2011). Nothing is said about the number of candidates that registered for the examination subject by subject, the number that actually wrote the examination subject by subject, results cancelled, nor the ones withheld.
But at the end of the research, his recommendations tell vividly the sorry state of our students' performances, and some ten years after, the situation now needs an emergency. This step can begin by first eradicating all this Special centres which my pain is predicated.
I can categorically tell you of the 65.24% of candidates who scored at least five credits, that only 10% of these candidates can defend their results, and the rest, are through the special center syndrome. Little wonder why after two to three years, some can't pass the Joint Admission Matriculation Board examination. Even the ones who manage to scale through realise the University is a different ball game entirely, so they likely would withdraw.
Nowadays, a student can start from a government school from ss1-3 then port to a said " SPECIAL CENTER" to write his or her exams and still come out in flying colors, without meritting it, but rather because MONEY SPEAKS.
What then is a special center?
Special centers are affiliated places where students write exams, originally created for lesson, tutorial centers, but now has been saddled with the responsibility of helping students write and pass various examinations provided they have the money.
Special centers didn't have the liberty of what they have now, in past years, however the dwindling educational system have also contributed greatly to the growth of this parasite contributing to the poor students we have today.
A typical tutorial center could be a biulding designed for a specific purpose of inculcating into the minds of the young ones the difficult subjects they find hard to learn in school. Which is a very good way to make decent money and encourage after school concept and total seriousness in students.
But when it has now resulted into sure A's in result, with just a token, then futures are now being tampered with negatively, and this has being for a while now, and my suggestions concerning this especially for the future of our students is tabled below.
I once came across an SS1 student at a school as a volunteer in shaping the minds of this young ones positively. I had asked why she didn't go to school, the response was saddening, "Its a waste of time sir, moreover I don't have intentions of writing exams there, because I wont pass" you can imagine the rest of the story. Gone is the days of vigorous reading, gone are the days when there are no alternatives to exam centers.
If we must bring back the ability and industrious reading spirit as in times before, then first we must eradicate alternative examination centers for our secondary schools. This might not go well with many people, like I said earlier, but if this country must grow, and if education is part of why it must grow, then quality education should be the mantra we lead.
One of the women that I teach her child in private coaching, had approached me recently, and was raining abuses on the kind of doctors we have now, she has narrated how she lost her mother to bad medical personnel, this was just few weeks ago, recently, she complained the same happening to her husband's sister, who also died due to poor and ill trained doctors.
My conclusion could be debatable, but you can't give what you don't have, from the fact that money has been used to buy results for these students which is not theirs, had paved way to such tragedy in our society.
The original reason why this special coaching centres are created for has long outlived their wits. I do understand that there may be loss of jobs for these people, but I am not against the destruction of their businesses but I am against their affiliation with educational agancies, and how they get to register students for exams, and make sure answers are floated to them without merriting them, thereby rendering hardwork meaninless. This is unacceptabel approach to education.
Every student should write exams only at their schools where they had spent their normal curriculum days. This is the more reason it should be a government approved center. In this way, if a student did not pass, the student should come back to the same school the following year to rewrite the same exam, for his or her certificate. I can guarantee that the resultant massive improvement will rock our students and their mentality will change.
In my interaction and observation with many students, I have realised one thing; they cant afford to spend longer years in their secondary schools because they all want to graduate as early as possible and proceed to what life has in stock for them.
This is why they would do anything to pass their exams at one sitting. Imagine if there were no alternatives, most classrooms would be filled with students, most teachers wouldn't have the moral laxity engulfing their pattern of teaching. once a subject teacher refuses to show up at his/her period complains would fly in the air, and much more importantly, the teacher's value would be raised even the more.
This is how we survived our secondary school days. We had tutorial centers, but not an alternative to results earning. And altough the system has been bastardized, there is no lateness into doing what is right.
I do hope that this article will get to the ministry of education and hopefully, transformation will take place. Parents as well have to stop patronizing special centers for the examination success of their children. The fact remains that examination is just once but knowledge is eternal. If the child has been denied the experience of self-reliance that comes through examination, then the future for such a child already is bleak.
Finally, as a student teacher and volunteer, it is true that the welfare of the teachers should not be negotiable. Their welfare should be paramount for the developement of any society. My findings have made me to understand that some of these teachers are the owners of these special centers, then you wonder, a teacher who refuses to teach during normal school hours, have the ability to take students on multiple subjects perfectly, for the sake of little stipend.
Where comes the energy, and zeal? Such teachers have realised there is no likely end to thier insatiable desires. They have decided to betray the future of these children.
These are students who shall be Doctors, who do not have any knowledge of medicine, Accountants who can not balance the books, Civil Engineers, on who's heads building shall continue to collapse, and tomorrow's Politicians -makers of our political instabilities. Today's problem has its roots in yesterday's negligence. The origin of ill-equiped society biulders.
Kareem Itunu Azeez writes from Lagos State University