“DON’T CRY FOR ME, WAEC” BY ’SOLA FAGORUSI
The West African Senior School Certificate Examination, organised by the West Africa Examination Council, is the principal final examination for secondary school pupils in Nigeria. Just as the results in the last three years have been everything but satisfactory, the results of the 2014 May/June examination have left stakeholders deeply troubled.
Like every other institution in the country facing its worst moment, it seems that the education sector has not been spared. Out of 1,692,435,000 candidates that sat for the exam, only 31.2 per cent managed to obtain a credit pass in five subjects, including Mathematics and English.
In 2013, only 36.57 per cent of the candidates managed to cross the bar, a further dip compared to 2012 that had 38.81 per cent of students passing the exam using similar yardstick.
The National Examination Council, which is Nigeria’s second most popular terminal examination convener for Senior Secondary School students, also keeps watching as the downward spiral continues. Considering the gradual decline in the pass rate from 92 per cent in 2011 to 68 per cent in 2012 and 52 per cent in 2013, the days ahead may spell doom for the education sector.
The learning environment in Nigeria has been altered. Schools are not what they used to be and schoolchildren seem to have more things competing for their time now than ever before. Television houses no longer resume at 4pm, as was the practice about a decade and half ago. Nowadays, TV broadcasting is a 24-hour affair. Parents also no longer have to yell to students to turn off the television and go to bed. Instead, teenagers are required to switch off their cell phones and do the needful – read or get on some other important tasks.
More than ever, the entertainment industry appears to have reached its peak. As a result, there is always a new song to download. It is not strange to find schoolchildren with their ears plugged with headsets and nodding to the rhythm of music, humming and miming songs from their favourite artistes.
Since the internet is affordable and accessible to many people, it should ordinarily be seen as one of the factors that aid performance. But the internet’s amazing resources seem to be ignored by scores of pupils who spend an average of three and four hours online every day. It is almost impossible to find a secondary school pupil, especially in urban or sub-urban communities, that does not own a smart phone and thoroughly understands how to manipulate the device to do as he or she wishes. Maybe it is time to research deeply into how to use some of these devices to improve knowledge.
Blanket rules by most schools banning all technology enabled devices may not be in the best interest of their pupils, if the baby and the bathwater are not to be thrown away. Schools may need to face the reality of the present day and age.
Technology is addictive. Educational institutions may need to explore the addictive nature of the internet and fix the problem of failure partly from this perspective. If new media technology is shaping several aspects of our lives and we are adjusting fast, education should not be left out. If anything, learning should be fun and easier.
Pupils no longer need to carry around dictionaries, encyclopaedia, maps and a number of other textbooks. They have the advantage of several options to choose from online or even on a single device. Chemistry students will find videos explaining the concept of organic chemistry from several sources online, same way a biology student can find explicit videos on the process of meiosis and mitosis that can engrave the knowledge in memory permanently. It is likely that students will favour an after-school assignment that’s happening on Facebook to one requiring the conventional approach.
There is however the need for setting boundaries to guide students in accessing these resources. Maybe it is also important to state that with technology, it is easier for the poor to get education today than it was previously.
A thorough grasp of the English Language is also possible with the deluge of literatures available and accessible online in addition to the ease with which newspapers can be accessed to enable students build a rich vocabulary base, understand national issues and also have grasp of the register of various disciplines and industries – a knowledge regularly tested by external examiners like WAEC.
With technology here to stay and it will be an error on the part of educational administrators to ignore this. It is worrisome to have external examiners only adopt technology in making administration of the examinations possible through form purchase and result checks alone. It should be wholesome. Learning needs to find a place in this revolution as it is. one certain way to keep students engaged and excited about learning. New media driven education is not about having computer labs in schools, it’s deeper than that.
Education ought to be a major priority 0f the Nigerian government with a need to make public primary and secondary schools as competitive and qualitative as the private ones. The glorious era of Nigeria’s educational system was after all during the period when the public secondary school reigned. There is also the dire need to review the educational budget of Nigeria. Ghana’s budget currently stands at 31 per cent; Coted’Ivoire’s 30 per cent, Uganda’s 27 per cent and Swaziland’s 24.6 per cent makes a mockery of Nigeria’s miserable 10.7 per cent. Education also needs to be redesigned to attract brilliant hands, since the quality of teachers also affects learning.
Entertainment and sports, two industries are popular with the youth today, do not develop a country. Urgent attention has to be paid to the education sector or like the growing failure rate, Nigeria will continue to grow negatively in ranking on several development indices and fate ourselves with a future with very shaky foundation that would draw tears from us many years from now.
Copyright PUNCH.
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