Unilag’s Post-UTM Examination candidates in last-minute rush for practice test software

MORE  than 3,200 candidates, apparently preparing for the last leg of admission examinations into the University of Lagos, have downloaded the computer-based tutorials offered on the internet by The Nation.

Several hundreds of other student visitors to the Facebook page where the download weblinks are available, have been requesting practice test and tutorial software based on past questions of admission examinations into other tertiary institutions across the country.
The Unilag admissions examinations begin next week, with different days alloted for examinees seeking admission into different faculties. About 120,000 candidates  have less than 12,000 admission slots.

The student visitors to the Facebook download page, have variously claimed the software enables live practice in real time while teaching them, since it juggles answer options for the same questions,  every time it is run while also providing exciting interactivity.

The Nation’s Databank and Archives began  making the post-UTM Examination practice software available as free downloads on the internet, four weeks ago.  The move then, was a  follow-up to the success of a trial-run last March, when ex-secondary schoolmates of Gov. Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, sponsored the release of  free JAMB English Language examination Practice Test and Tutorial software, in a novel expression of the ex-students support for the governor’s second term bid.

That software, named Fashola.exe,  is currently undergoing a global peer review, as a teaching and learning software tool and technique. It may be Nigeria’s first contribution to the global pool of e-learning tools.

Now six in number and across three subjects, the downloadable collection of software is based on tested  e-learning techniques which use answer options to examination questions to teach the principles of particular subjects. Education tools and technology experts say the innovation promises to be an effective last minute examination revision technique.

Plans are afoot now, to broaden the adoption of the technique and spread its impact on learning in Nigeria. A coalition of education scholars,  varsity teachers and the Nigerian media is now at the forefront of a quest to use as many novel tools as are available and applicable to   reverse the mass failure of Nigerian secondary school students. 

Several other Nigerian newspapers are teaming up with The Nation in what is now seen as a first hands-on effort at arresting a national decline. 
 The Nigerian creators of the novel software, have since moved on to creating regular television-viewable video versions of the software content. This has made it possible to create television-viewable videos that will make the teaching of subjects such as Mathematics easier.

Many Science subjects, just like  Mathematics, are said to be difficult to teach many youngsters who see them as too serious for the fun they expect  in everything. The new video disc-based teaching which allows for interactive self-paced learning, is expected to take care of the lack of interest,  as well as the problem of short attention span, common among many secondary school students.
Two weeks ago, the same developers announced the creation of a new teaching technique that enables the use of mobile phones to deliver the same tutorials. The announcement served notice that mobile phones may play a major role in the fight to reverse mass failure among secondary school students in Nigeria.
Nigerian mobile phone operators are monitoring the new developments. More than 20 million mobile phone users in Nigeria are believed to be these young  secondary school students, even as virtually every one of  the country’s near 60 million students,  have access to at least one mobile phone.
Secondary School Certificate Examination results  released just last week, indicated that another one million Nigerian secondary students again  failed this years examinations. They join millions of others,  who for the last two decades, have been becoming  unemployable even as they join the  country’s teeming millions of unemployed youths.

Three weeks ago, at meetings between worried interests and leading education scholars and researchers the shape of a national campaign  to reverse mass failure of  Nigerian secondary school students was unveiled.
At least 18 University teachers and professional educators across the country, are siding with the Nigerian media, led by The Nation in efforts to teach digital age students with digital-age tools.
Under plans now being perfected:
•     Selected mobile phone companies may  offer phone-based tutorials and examination  practice tests to interested Nigerian subscribers.
• A Nigerian secondary school student portal will be developed to offer free blog-type tutorials and interactive educational games to students who will have free all-year-round-access
•    Some Nigerian newspapers may similarly distribute free multimedia discs containing many hours of television-viewable video tutorials and computer software-based practice tests. This is to cater for the larger majority of students who really do not have access to computers or the internet and or are too indigent to be able to afford the mobile phones or the phone airtime.
• Nigerian secondary school teachers will be offered comprehensive video and data disc-based teaching-aid packages to improve their knowledge of the subjects they teach, as well as provide regular and cost-effective refreshers of their teaching skills.  This is expected to reduce the cost of providing training for teachers, while making their training and retraining, an all-year-round  event.
• A Nigerian secondary school teachers portal may also be developed to offer free blog and forum-type tutorials to teachers who will have free access to download tutorials and teaching-aid tests, as well as sit periodic examinations which will attract a Certificate of Proficiency in the subjects they teach.
•    Education tools researchers in several Nigerian Universities will study and monitor the students, using any of the many learning-aid tools, in a bid to find any correlation between the use of the learning aids and the success of the students in examinations.
Leading Nigerian Educational tools and methods researcher, Professor  Peter Okebukola, has taken up the gantlet. Okebukola successfully ran a similar decline reversal program for Nigerian university teachers.
He and many experts have hinted that the continued use of yesterday’s analogue  blackboard and chalk techniques to teach today’s digital age students, is largely to blame for the recurring mass failure in Nigerian secondary schools.