Becoming algebra ninjas: why Arewa may never fail O-Level math again (part I)

When it was reported in the news that only 17 out of the 18,000 secondary school students who sat for WAEC and NECO in Gombe State passed, many thought the 17 was a typographical error.  Obviously it wasn’t, because other states in Nigeria share similar disturbing statistics and the governments don’t seem to know exactly […]

When it was reported in the news that only 17 out of the 18,000 secondary school students who sat for WAEC and NECO in Gombe State passed, many thought the 17 was a typographical error. 
Obviously it wasn’t, because other states in Nigeria share similar disturbing statistics and the governments don’t seem to know exactly how to remedy the problem.  Last year, out of frustration, the Kwara State government slashed its grant for the payment of the National Examination Council (NECO) senior secondary examination from N80 to N13 million; this, according to the commissioner for education and human capital development, Raji Mohammed,  was because of the mass failure of Kwara State students in the SS III mock examinations –  of the 33,000 students who were to benefit from the grant, only 3,100 passed the mock examination prepared by the state government.
Everybody wishes that we’re not burdened with the problem of mass failure in examinations. But how do we solve this problem?  Many people have attempted different solutions – they range from dazzlingly impressive to crazy schemes. 
For example when we were in secondary school, we’re fed a daily diet of efficacy of prayers in solving examination problems.  We’re told the story of a student who wrote nonsense in WAEC and when the marker saw the nonsensical paper and not knowing what to make of it, scribbled two questions on the script and those two marks were recorded in his favour as 77.  This was because the student, although not prepared, prayed “hard”. Of course we, the lazy students, lapped up stories like this one.  But as we all know, you have to combine studying with prayers to do well.  Sayyed Qutb wrote in one of his books that just because we believe doesn’t mean we would be exempted from the laws of cause and effect.
Some state governments also have or had their solutions to the problem.  For example the Bauchi State government started special science schools under the management of Dr. Aliyu Tilde and within a short time, he raised the grades of the students in final examinations. However, like many things of our governments, that programme – at least its intensity – wasn’t sustained.
There’s also a Zaria community service initiative – the Refresher Academy – started by Aliyu Sambo and Zubairu Baban-Jummai who organized like-minded people to teach secondary school students the sciences and other subjects for free. I know some engineers (in petroleum, electrical and so forth) who owe their grounding in sciences to that initiative. I was told the service is still operational but no longer free – this may make it inaccessible to those who can’t pay.
Special centres (where principals and the community bribe invigilators to allow students to cheat) which used to be a southern phenomenon, now strew Arewa. I was told that Prof. Abubakar Sani Sambo and Malam Nasir el-Rufai pushed to close the ones in Zaria.  Some students even hire professional exam writers to sit in their stead.  But these desperate measures are anything but solutions.
We can also introduce students to excellent online tutorial sites like KhanAcademy.org and TheNewBoston.com, however, not every student has the gadget to benefit from these sites.
Budgetary allocation is also a solution we throw at the problem.  In February 2011, the president wrote this on  his Facebook page:
“You may have noticed from this year’s (2011) budget proposal now before the National Assembly that the administration which I head, by the grace of God and the wishes of the Nigerian people, intends to spend a record amount on education. This amount is easily the largest amount ever devoted to education since Nigeria became an independent nation on October 1, 1960.”
Did the increase in allocation solve the problem? I don’t know why our government functionaries equate budgeting to performance.  It’s not!
Therefore, besides the inherent problems in the solutions and the initiatives I enumerated above, they also don’t enjoy Arewa-wide coverage and it’s not easy to measure the outcome and performance of some of them.  Additionally, the system will give Arewa an edge in mathematics and science subjects.
So, how do we solve the problem?
 We designed a system that is completely free to the student and accessible to anyone no matter how far away they live from civilization (whether in a village or a hamlet, with electricity or without).