by S’ola Filani
Some Nigerians have expressed mixed reactions on the 70 per cent mass failure in the May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results.
Our friends at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) conducted a survey on Friday and a cross section of the Nigerians interviewed, attributed the failure to non-charlatan attitude by students, teachers and the government.
Prof. Chris Okoro, the Commissioner for Education, Enugu State, attributed the mass failure to poor reading culture by students.
“Students no longer read because they know they can engage in examination malpractice. So, how do you think they can pass the examinations?
“If you look at that result critically, you will find out that a good number of the failures must have participated in examination malpractices,’’ he said.
Okoro said the mass failure could also be attributed to lack of proper coordination by the students during the exercise.
“Some of the students forget they are writing examination and start writing the ways they text GSM messages.’’
He said the Federal Government had been doing a lot to improve the education system through funding, training, provision of structures, among others.
“It is time for stakeholders, such as the students, teachers, and parents, among others, to take responsibility for their actions,’’ okoro said.
He advised that anybody found involved in examination malpractice should be sanctioned.
Mr Lawal Adebola, a senior official in the Ministry of Education, Ogun, also attributed the mass failure to lack of commitment from students, teachers and parents.
“We cannot blame specific group for the mass failure, it is a collective responsibility, we are all guilty and we need to look for a way out to solve the problem.
“We need to work further to ensure that students at that level are well catered for by the government, by the system, the school and teachers.‘’
Adebola said there was need for the re-orientation of the students to actually know why they were in school and the essence of WAEC certificate.
Mrs Elizabeth Ugo, the Commissioner for Education, Benue State, said the mass failure could be linked to ‘unserious attitude’ of students.
Ugo called on teachers to ensure that students were prepared with the required syllabus for them to do better in the future.
“We need to sit up and do much more in preparing the students for terminal examinations.
“Many children today do not read but spend so much time on the internet. We have to imbibe the culture of reading in our children,’’ she advised.
Why will they not fail when the minister of education is busy fighting a sitting governor with education money.
The government in some state are even adding pepper to the injury, giving naturally unserious students phones instead of say well equiped computer room for sS3 alone or textbooks. Instead of reading they end up playing games and watching films on the phone, and why won’t they use I.M languages in their exam when that’s what they do all day….. Chat. You can only take a horse to the stream u can force it to drink water, no matter what teachers do they can’t pass because their mind isn’t in what they are being taught. The parents too ar at fault, if statistics is taken most of the students that failed are from public schools, and I guess since the parent didn’t pay for the school they are not really concerned with their ward’s accademics like they would if they are paying through their nose….. Education doesn’t have value because it doesn’t have a price to it and it is seen as something of no use.
Most ppl read,but sumtimes d questions are far 4rm wat dey read