Principals now to answer for students failure in WAEC, NECO

The Governor of Kogi, Capt. Idris Wada, said on Wednesday that school principals would henceforth be held responsible for the poor performance of their students in examinations.

Wada, who disclosed this in Lokoja at the opening of a three-day workshop on the implementation of the new Senior Secondary School curriculum, said that the move was to arrest the poor standard of education in the state.

He said that the government had been embarrassed enough by the mass failure of students in public examinations.

He noted that the students poor performances in WAEC and NECO examinations in the last five years did not justify the government's huge investment in education.

The governor warned the principals and teachers in public schools to sit up or face the wrath of the government, saying that the era of business as usual in the education sector was over.

Wada urged parents and guardians to complement the government's efforts by making sure that their wards reported to school promptly and asked the students to take their studies seriously.

He said that the education sector would soon be reorganised, saying that the re-organisation was to check the lapses of the past with a view to taking the sector to the next level.

According to the governor, NECO will continue to handle the Junior Secondary School Certificate (JSSCE) examination in the state as part of efforts to ensure qualitative education.

The governor explained that the new curriculum was designed to inculcate practical and vocational training in students and explained that the objective was to make the students self-reliant after their secondary education.

In his remarks, the Commissioner for Education, Chief Sylvester Onoja, said that the workshop was organised to ensure quality education at the secondary school level.

He thanked the governor for according education top priority since his assumption of office.

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NECO Results Out, Another Mass Failure!

Another mass failure has been recorded by students across the country in the just announced 2011 June/July Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results.

 Registrar, Chief Executive of the Council, (NECO) while announcing the results in Minna Friday, exonerated the Council from the poor outing of students nationwide, adding that structures that ensured that appropriate standards of excellence and transparency were maintained before, during and after the examinations were put in place.

A breakdown of the results shows that out of the 1,190,393 that registered for the English language, 1,160,049 actually sat for the examinations while only 2,119 or 0.18% came out with Distinction and 263,777 or 22.16% came out with Credit pass, 76,224 or 6.40% failed while there 51,312 malpractice or 4.31% was recorded. In Mathematics, 1,190,365 registered for the subject while 1,156,561 sat for it with only 3,356 or 0.28% obtaining Distinction and 295,961 or 24.86% with credit, 7, 7,395 or 60.27% pass, 89,023 or 7.48% failed while 50,826 or 4.27% malpractice was recorded.

Core subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Further Mathematics also recorded mass failure with high degrees of malpractices also recorded. Answering questions from Journalists on the continous mass failure in external examinations, Registrar/Chief Executive of the Council, Professor Promise M. Okpala attributed the continous mass failure to a lot of variables which he said include the learners (Students) themselves, the various schools across the country, parents and even the society.

He said while the Federal government and some states have already taken bold steps to improve on the educational standard, all stakeholders will have to be patient before reaping the good results adding that “the high expectations cannot be achieved immediately because change in the behavioral pattern of the children take time”. Professor Okpala identified quality teaching on the part of teachers and intensive learning by the students concerned as the only way out if the dwindling academics and poor results in the country have to be drastically reduced.

On whether the Council has an approved syllabus for its candidates and whether schools are being monitored in strict compliance with the approved syllabus, the Registrar said, “in as much as NECO has an approved and standard syllabus, strict compliance with it rest sorely in the hands of each school to ensure that the syllabus are met in terms of teaching.” According to him,” it cannot be proper for any external examiner to go into schools to analyse how they are teaching their students and for the same examiner to oversee the markings of answer sheets of such students.

Okpala emphasized on the markings of examination scripts of students saying, “we embark on centralized marking and those engaged in our markings are qualified teachers who teach in various secondary schools across the country and I want to assure you that we don’t award marks randomly but according to ability and capability of each student. A total of 1,190,393 candidates registered for the examination out of while 1,160561 actually sat for the examination.

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