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John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a former United States President, might have had not only the US in mind, but also other nations, including Nigeria, desirous of marked advancement in all areas of their national life in mind, when he made this submission decades ago.
That's why the yearly results and overall performances of students in public examinations in the last decade, particularly in the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO) have been a real source of worry to patriotic Nigerians and true friends of Nigeria, who monitor and analyse the fortunes of this critical sector of the economy to gauge where the country stands in terms of functional education, compared to what obtains in other climes.
For instance, the May/June, 2011 examination results indicated that less than 22% of the over one million candidates passed with at least five credits in five subjects, including English language and Mathematics. It's therefore, certainly no exaggeration to posit that quality, purposeful education in Nigeria had been experiencing a free-fall, a situation principally attributable to a dwindling reading culture among today's learners.
However, what key factors could be traced to the comparatively poor reading habit among the so-called “BlackBerry (BB) learners,” in the country these days? And whose fault is it really? Of course, it's that of all: Government at all levels, parents, teachers, students/ school proprietors/proprietresses, education administrators and managers, total collapse of societal value system and other stakeholders in the Nigerian enterprise.
In connection with a deliberate attempt at discouraging countless students from engaging in any thorough academic studies and excel academically any longer, careful checks have revealed that most private school proprietors owners of registered/unregistered tutorial centres are culpable and neck-deep in perpetrating exam malpractices in this regard.
Certainly, there have been numerous instances where lots of dishonest private school managements greedily raise exam fees, running into tens of thousands of Naira, for “logistics”, regarding candidates registered for public examinations organised by WAEC, NECO and JAMB (Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board). Research has shown that it is contrary to the stipulated and widely publicised exam charges by these exam organs, which average between N5, 000 and N8, 000 respectively.
Even without any tinge of serious pre-examination coaching and assessment in the examination subjects to determine how candidates would fare eventually, such pervert private schools and their tutorial centres' collaborators who also arrange for “Special Centres” with their massive posters that tend to offend the sensibilities of well-versed Nigerians with things like “8 As Guaranteed” (in WAEC/NECO); “Score 300 and above” (in UTME), and other ridiculous inscriptions to attract patronage. But the germane question is: Who's guaranteeing such outrageously high marks, and how do they achieve such “miracles” in the absence of rigorous academic exercises before their registered candidates sit actual exams?
One makes bold to say that it's all fraud, as candidates registered by many of such schools and exam coaching centres deliberately, are made to pay their way through via exam irregularities. One actually challenges anyone, group or institution to a national debate on this critical issue of dubious, prevalent but largely unreported pre-exam activities going on in such places.
The implication of these obvious lapses in effective learning has been grave on the economy. Now, poorly prepared school leavers get pushed into tertiary institutions. In turn, the shortfall in painstaking learning, reading, writing and communicative abilities continues to manifest even years after graduation.
Kayode writes from Lagos
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