ABUJA – Stakeholders in education have blamed the poor performance of Nigerian students in public examinations on poor teacher quality, poor reading habits and the emergence of Information Communication Technology (ICT).
The stakeholders expressed their views In a survey conducted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) across the country.
The May/June result of the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination shows that less than 32 per cent of candidates obtained credit passes in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
The result shows that of the 1,692,435 candidates, 529,425 obtained credits in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, to qualify to study at the tertiary level of education.
In Lagos, Mr Charles Eguridu, Head, National Office (HNO) WAEC, said there was a marginal decline in the performance of candidates when compared with the 2012 and 2013 results.
Eguridu attributed the poor results to the lack of interest by parents in the academic performance of their children and wards.
“A lot of parents these days do not live up to their responsibilities when it comes to the academic welfare and progress of their children.
“They are busy chasing after money all day while their children spend most of their time going after irrelevances.
“We must understand that we, as parents, cannot abdicate our responsibilities to teachers and expect them to excel if we do not do our bit.
“The only thing that makes one exceptional is learning to do that which others cannot do,” he said.
Eguridu advised parents to live up to their responsibilities by properly guiding and monitoring their children to ensure focus on their studies.
A former Minister of Education, Prof. Chinwe Obaji, told NAN that the situation today was getting worse, compared to the situation in the past.
She said there were too many distractions, especially with the craze for western lifestyle and the influx of Information Communication Technology (ICT).
Obaji said many students attended school with their telephones and while in class got busy with irrelevant activities.
Obaji said that government must also review the idea of allowing every child to progress to a new class irrespective of his performance at the end of the session.
She said that automatic promotion for students was wrong, encouraged laziness among students and led to the mass failure in public examinations.
“When the students discover that they promote en-masse, they no longer take their studies seriously; and then, we continue to promote misfits to the next class.
“And at the terminal stages, we then witness mass failure.
“We must also try and discourage admitting students who are still awaiting their results into institutions of higher learning.
“Let us also look at how we can stop candidates from writing JAMB without first obtaining their West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results.
“I think with this policy in place, the students will show more seriousness in their education,” the former minister said.
Obaji advocated a sound education system to ensure the success of Education For All EFA by 2015.
She said it was only when this was achieved that products of the system would be able to impact meaningfully at the basic level.
Mr Rufus Famuwagun, the South-West Zonal Coordinator, National Association of Parents and Teachers of Federal Unity Colleges, said there was a need for constant training and re-training of teachers.
He noted that there had been instances where some teachers could not pass examinations meant for students.
Famuwagun said it was not possible for students to excel if teachers, who were critical stakeholders in human capital development, were ill-equipped.
“We must strive to continually keep our teachers well-informed and trained as they can only give what they have.
“We must also review our teaching methodology which has become obsolete.
“If we go to schools around the country, we will discover that most of the teachers are not trained on the current trend when it comes to teaching, especially the core subjects.
“Most of these teachers are not even professionals in the subjects they tend to be teaching, especially when it comes to moving from the simple to complex teaching methodology.
“Parents on their own part, too, must join hands with the teachers in redirecting the course of their children through proper mentoring.