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Experts in education lists reasons students perform poorly in external examinations in both secondary and tertiary education sector
| By Adaku Onyenucheya | Sep 14, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE results of the May/June 2015 Senior School Certificate Examination released by the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, has shown that education sector in Nigeria needs urgent attention. According to the results, about 70 percent of the candidates failed the exams.
This alarming number of failure in WAEC was also recorded in the 2015 Nigerian Law School results released on August 6, by the Council of Legal Education. The results of the exams conducted in April and May 2015 revealed that 32.3 percent of the 5588 candidates who sat for the exams failed. Giving a breakdown of the results, O. A. Onadeko, director general, Nigerian Law School, revealed that out of a total number of 2,736 students who participated in the Bar final reset examinations for the 2014/2015 school year, 1,648 students were successful, 98 secured conditional pass, while 990 failed.
The 2015 Bar final examinations for regular students had a total of 2,852 candidates, out of which only four students made first class; 109 candidates, second class upper; 418, second class lower; 1,422 got pass, 83 got conditional pass, while 815 failed. This alarming trend of mass failure particularly in recent years have shown that stakeholders in the education sector, namely the examination bodies, the ministry of education, schools, teachers, parents, and even students have a role to play in combating this ugly trend.
Realnews investigations have shown that students at all levels of learning hardly find time to neither read nor study. Most of them occupy themselves with other activities which include social media and socialising and watching films which distract them from studies.
According to Nwankwo Obiora, head of Department, HOD, Printing Technology Department, Yaba College of Technology, YABATECH, Lagos, lack of seriousness on the part of the students are contributing to declining academic fortunes of many students. He noted that most students are less concerned about their academic excellence and doesn’t see education as a responsibility on their part.
“When students don’t attend classes and they are expected to do their assignment, and some of them won’t even come to write their test, you find out that their Continuous Assessment, CA, becomes very low. And generally they don’t study for themselves. If a student does not come to class regularly and is not taking enough to study, the result is failure at the end of the day,” he said.
Vincent Onye, head teacher, Status School, Dopemu area of Lagos, said most of the students living a carefree life are always carried away by the social media activities which serve as a distraction. He said most students find it difficult to prepare ahead of the examination because they believe in procrastination which is one of the biggest disease affecting students. “Students fail because they have not taken out time to study; they have not taken it upon themselves as a responsibility to study and pass.”
Some experts in the field of education list many factors responsible for the mass failure in examinations toinclude laziness, apathy, wrong choice of profession, weak parental function, inadequate facilities, teaching method among others. Temitope Olorunfemi, principal, Status School, Dopemu area of Lagos, said that most parents have failed on their part towards their children academics. Olorunfemi said parents are indifferent about the activities of their children in school due to pursuit of money and their businesses. He said most parents ignore their role to allocate time to oversee their children’s performance, give them the necessary support and encouragement they need, monitor their activities both at school and at home. He also attributed the situation to the economic challenges of many parents. He said that being a student in the higher institution, involves a lot of financial support because students need money to carter for themselves at school as well as buy materials needed to aid their studies. “Assignments are been given, class work, practical’s and students need money to execute it by making research on the internet as well as buying materials needed for the practical’s. Financial constraints can lead to mental disorder.”
Philip Oloyede, a business administration student, University of Lagos, attributed the failure to lack of preparedness on the part of students. He noted that students fail to prepare because they lack objectives in life. “Preparation is not at the final year. You have to start preparing from your day one in school. You must know what you want to get. You must have a particular objective of what you want to achieve. Then you set a pace for yourself, and that will form your reading habit. That was what helped me when I got to school,” he said.
Earlier this year, the Education Right Campaign, ERC, a non-governmental organisation, blamed the government at all level for the continuous failure in external examinations in the country. In a press statement signed by Hassan Soweto, national coordinator, ERC, said teachers and lecturers are not being appreciated by the government and this has resulted in some teachers doing their job haphazardly. He stated that the attitude of teachers to work reflects on the students’ performance at school.
“Far from being the fault of the candidates, this disastrous result is a reflection of the anti-poor and neo-liberal policies of education underfunding and commercialisation by government at all levels in the country. Government at all level has pursued a relentless policy of starving public education funds such that primary and secondary schools across the country have become devastated with little or no teaching infrastructures such that no useful learning is taking place,” he said.
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