The ridiculous mass failure in national examinations

This sorry state of mass failure could be attributed to the fact that at the moment, the country’s educational policymakers are only interested in making inputs into schools’ curricula than finding ways and means of achieving outcomes that reflect in better student performance. A quick intervention by way of bringing in sound educational policy that […]

This sorry state of mass failure could be attributed to the fact that at the moment, the country’s educational policymakers are only interested in making inputs into schools’ curricula than finding ways and means of achieving outcomes that reflect in better student performance.

A quick intervention by way of bringing in sound educational policy that would make both teachers and students more effective should be adopted with a view to ameliorating the situation. For example, the immediate intervention in banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to restore confidence in the banking system played a significant role in averting an imminent crash in the financial sector in the country.

Likewise, a similar treatment is needed to bail out the educational sector by the intervention of the federal, states and local governments in the country.

Primary school education which is the most important foundation of school education deserves to be given a lot of importance than it is receiving at the moment. Suggestions have been made by a lot of concerned people about handing over primary school education to the Federal Government which has better funding at its disposal to make primary education more effective.

Due to political impediments and other administrative setbacks, the states and local governments have turned out to be very poor in managing almost every sector in ministries, departments, etc., turning such offices into political battlefields where praise singing and sycophancy are the order of the day.

For example, there are some primary school teachers with BA (Ed) including PG(Ed) promoted only once despite the number of years they had spent teaching. Those are the type of teachers required to man primary education. Instead, they would be frustrated due to political factors. They are forced to give up and turn to private schools where they would be fully accommodated.

This shortcoming is a big threat to the future development of our pupils. Education is supposed to be left for the specialists just as the hospitals are manned by capable doctors.

It’s not everything that our political leaders should turn into political gamesmanship. We cannot afford to play with education. But this year’s NECO exams have proved to us that we are not getting things right. If state governments will refuse to allow professional teachers to guide them concerning the quality and quantity of education they should impart to their citizens, our country will remain perpetually backwards.

The side-effect of neglecting the development of education is social unrest, arson and crimes like armed robbery, political thuggery and murder, which are today on the rise in our country. The society on its part should not fold its arms and watch helplessly as the government fails to provide qualitative education for our children, but should rather be active participants in the process.

Personally, I think we are not helping the educational sector. Rather, we are forcing the system to collapse as private schools are encouraged to replace public schools just as private universities keep emerging with a high frequency. But private education because of the high cost cannot cater for the needs of all the citizens, most of whom cannot afford the cost. In addition, teachers should be given the chance to attend courses, seminars and conferences with a view to enriching their experiences and helping them to acquire skills that would facilitate better delivery of knowledge to their pupils. We owe it to our children to ensure they are properly educated, especially in today’s world where development is moving at a very rapid pace. They must not be left behind.

Gumel wrote from Darmanawa Qtrs, Tarauni Local Government, Kano State, [email protected].