For the fourth time in a row, Ghana has won the diadem for the best performance in the May/June Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination conducted by the West African Examinations Council. This is a development that further confirms the prolonged downward trend in Nigeria’s education; it should provoke the federal, state governments and other stakeholders into soul-searching.
At the council’s 64th annual meeting in Accra, Ghana in March 2016, Jessica Quaye was announced as the candidate with the best result in the 2015 SSCE. The second prize winner was Ruth Awadzi, while Daniella Amo-Mensah picked the third prize. All of them are from Ghana. Interestingly, the three maidens came from Wesley Girl’s High School, Cape Coast, Ghana.
These brilliant youngsters were among the 1,883,775 candidates that sat the examination from WAEC-member countries comprising: The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. In 2014, the trio of Mickail Hasan, Blaykyi Kenyah and Henry Enninful had also achieved a Ghanaian treble, an unbroken streak of dominance since 2012.
What has given Ghana the edge over Nigeria? Its educational system is stable and quality-oriented. In 2010 it bucked the trend in examination cheating by publicly exposing the cheats. This sent strong signals to students that success comes only by a dint of hard work. But the story is quite different here. Despite the fact that cheating in examination is a criminal offence, many parents encourage their children to cheat; and those caught are let off the hook. In 2013, WAEC barred 3,321 Nigerian candidates from taking its examination for two years over malpractices; delisted 133 schools for the same offence, while 118 principals were blacklisted.
This depraved mentality towards academic success correlates with the disorder in Nigeria’s school system, starting from basic school. For evidence, look no further than the 1,300 teachers that failed primary four pupils’ tests in Kaduna State in 2013. In Kwara State, 259 teachers scored zero in a similar exam; while a competence test in Edo State for 13,000 primary school teachers was aborted, as only 200 of them showed up. In Sokoto State, unqualified teachers numbered as high as 80 per cent of the teaching staff. A survey showed this challenge to be widespread nationwide.
As Ademola Onifade, a professor of education, rightly observed, “Primary education marks the footing for national education; there should be much work therein.” But when teachers’ puny salaries are perennially owed, pupils sit on the bare floor to receive lessons, and many schools are in a dilapidated condition, the motivation for teaching becomes virtually non-existent. This is the ugly tapestry that shapes other layers of education in our country. Little wonder that pupils who scored two marks out of 200 in some northern states in the National Unity Colleges’ common entrance examination were adjudged to have passed; in fact, they displaced their colleagues who scored 130 marks from other states in the South in furtherance of a warped quota system.
Shockingly, government and policymakers are not doing anything fundamental to reverse this dangerous slide that gnaws at the country’s future. Yearly statistics of candidates’ general performance in WASCE, which are more often than not dismal, call for a strategic response. For instance, in 2014, only 31.28 per cent had credits in five subjects and above, including English and mathematics; it was 38.68 per cent in 2015.
In dealing with this chaos, attention should be paid to UNESCO’s observation. In 2014, it classified Nigeria as one of the 37 countries in the world that collectively invest $129 billion annually in what it terms as “education without learning.” At the launch of Education for All, Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO director in Nigeria, Hassana Alidou, alarmingly said Nigeria had the worst education indicators.
The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokovs, warns, “Access is not the only crisis – poor quality is holding back learning even for those who make it to school.” Yes, quality cannot be guaranteed in our secondary school system with acute shortage of teachers in critical subjects such as mathematics, physics and other sciences across the states. The curriculum is overloaded with 35 subjects; science laboratories are not equipped and technical workshops non-existent. In some instances, state governors have embezzled funds from the centre meant for improving educational infrastructure.
Weaning our school system off these millstones requires a deliberate policy action from the government. A critical overhaul of teacher-training programmes, periodic evaluation of teachers’ performance and improved educational supervision are essential to repositioning secondary education in Nigeria for better results. Above all, the enhancement of teachers’ welfare must be taken as a priority. This is what countries like Finland, Canada and Australia have done to attract the best to the teaching profession, conscious of the fact it is the foster-father of all professions.
Advanced countries are already refocusing their education. In Britain, government has initiated a policy that subjects pupils to the teaching of mathematics up to the age of 18. The Chancellor, George Osborne, told the House of Commons recently that it was the most important thing the country could do “…to boost the long-term productivity of our economy.” Nigeria should not be left behind.
