The Insight by Lateef Adewole
This Thursday 25th of August, 2022, I was privileged, once again, to attend the Valedictory Service of a school that I hold in high esteem and have associated with in the last six years. The school has always been a source of pride to me based on the quality of education and grooming that students receive there. It gives all-round training to them; academics, sports, discipline, character building and moulding, leadership, spiritual guidance, and so on.
Ota Total Academy (OTA), is located in Ota, Ogun State. The ceremony was held in honour of the 2021/22 graduating set. It was colourful, with students displaying different talents in academics, cultural displays like singing and dancing of different tribes in Nigeria, rendition of panegyrics of many cities in Yorubaland like Awori, Egba, Ijebu and Offa. An incisive, in-depth and very educative valedictory lecture was delivered by an erudite scholar, Associate Professor of Agric Economics, from The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Dr. Shakirudeen Oladele Akinbode. He was concise in his content and brilliant in his delivery. I enjoyed every bit of it.
He opened his lecture by praising the school for one thing: the exceptional performances of their students in external examinations like WAEC and JAMB, with no assistance to the students. That the students do the examinations by themselves and whatever results they get are reflections of their personal efforts. And they have always performed very well over the years. This point is instructive. Such training given to their students continues to show in them as they progress to higher institutions.
I have made personal findings as to how the students fare, post-secondary and what I know is so impressive and heart-warming. My wife’s niece finished from the school about eight years ago. She went ahead to top her department at her university and graduated with a First-Class (Honours). When I met the school principal some years ago and told him about her, he was happy but not surprised. I was amazed at the casualness of his reaction. When I ask him why, he struggled to remember the girl. Why? Because, she was not even among the outstanding students while she was in their school.
He told me that their students regularly graduate with First-Class in their universities. So, he is so used to such news as he has seen so many over and over again. This is the kind of school that Ota Total Academy is. As long as the students continue to apply the trainings they received while in the school to their studies and future endeavours, they are bound to succeed, God’s willing. I have enrolled three of my children there in the last six years.
I brought up this story for some emphasis. Just recently, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) released the results of the 2021/2022 first series last week Monday. Of the total 1,601,047 students that took the examinations nationwide, the overall performance, which is measured in the number of students who got credit in minimum of five subjects, including English language and Mathematics is 1,222,505, representing 76.36%, though lower than 2020/21 results, which was 81.7%.
We have also been seeing and reading about many students who have outstanding results like “A1s” in all their eight or nine subjects or close to that. A student of Ota Total Academy has seven A1s and one B2 in the eight subjects he took. Many others have different numbers of As and Bs. The school reported 100% performance in this regard of minimum of five credits, including English language and Mathematics. These feats are worthy of celebration. The students, whose results are posted online, do receive commendations, deservedly so.
Further statistical analysis of the WAEC results have been broken down statewise and they were ranked. This saw Enugu, Edo and Benue states as top three and Katsina, Osun and Zamfara as bottom three. This ranking do give governors and state governments “bragging right”. This is added as achievement by any state administration, rightly so, provided it is “real”. I say this because, many things in Nigeria have become “the more you look, the less you see”.
I read somewhere where the Osun state government praised their performance this year despite being in number 35 of the 36 states. Why? Because they believe that the reforms that their government introduced into the education sector is yielding desired results. Beyond that ranking, it was stated that, of 31,932 candidates from the state, 16,912, representing 52.9% had minimum of five credits, including English language and Mathematics. This is seen as an improvement from the previous year 2020/21 where 32,950 candidates took part, but only paltry 6,587 (20%) made five credits that included English language and Mathematics.
So, 2021/22 year’s performance is seen as a very huge improvement of about 164.6% over previous year. Why would any state government celebrate what seems like a “mediocre” performance? It is because they believe whatever results their students get this time around majorly reflect the students’ true personal abilities. They got them without mercenary assistance, an examination virus that has eaten deep into our educational sector. They further revealed that the current administration in Osun decided to rid the state of all forms of shameful “miracle and special examination centres”, which have become preponderance across the country.
Schools that engage in any form of examination malpractice are sanctioned and the teachers in such schools also get punished. With these, sanity is said to be returning to the state gradually such that, instead of being in the WAEC’s black list and getting condescending reviews, as was previously the case, they now receive letters of commendation from the WAEC board to the state for its reforms in education and setting examples in advocating against examination malpractice. This is the real deal.
Over the years, especially with the infiltration of private schools which have turned education to “serious money spinning business”, the standard of conducting examinations have continued to degenerate. Most of the private schools want to ensure their students “clear all their papers in one sitting” as a selling point to parents of prospective students. They make adverts of such feats and put them on billboards. To achieve this, they can go to any length in engaging in cheating in the examinations.
Aside them, there are “miracle/ special” centres all over the country, designated for high level examination malpractices. These notorious centres do many unthinkable things for candidates to pass by all means. They represent the lowest level in examination fraud. When exams are completed and results released, it is the aggregate of all these that make up each state’s performance and what is eventually ranked. How then can we truly evaluate which state does best or worst, given the painted scenario?
With due respect to countless brilliant students across the country who genuinely achieved good results by their dint of hard work, I always view many of those outstanding results I see online with contempt and iota of doubt, except I know the school very well. The humongous cheating in most schools, private and public, and miracle centres, have watered down many achievements of others. But, why is this so rampant?
What I see as foundational cause is the premium that is placed on the grade levels of each subjects in the WAEC results that students provide for admission into the universities in the last one decades or more, when the process changed. Getting admission into the universities have become a tug of war in Nigeria today. Being brilliant alone might not be enough. This is mainly due to limited slots. Imagine almost two million candidates write JAMB annually and seeking admissions into the universities with less than 600,000 spaces in all, both public and private. The competition is stiff, compounded by lumping up admissions for multiple years caused by perennial ASUU strikes.
To screen out many candidates, the universities introduced grading system that captures and allocates points to WAEC results of each admission seeker based on their subject grades. The higher the grade, the higher the points. This is in addition to the points assigned to JAMB scores and the Post-UME/JAMB, conducted internally by each university. These intricacies have compelled admission seekers, aided by their parents, guidance and secondary school managements to desperately want excellent WAEC results, by hook or crook, to boost their admission chances. These have negative consequences.
The guest lecturer at OTA Valedictory Service revealed how they encounter difficulties teaching many of these students with excellent WAEC results obtained through cheating. Many of them know next to nothing about the subjects they had great grades, on which basis they were admitted to study the courses of their choice. This becomes problems for both the lecturers and the students, as the avenue for cheating might not be there. This, he said, has led to many of them failing and having multiple carry-overs. Such have led to depression and even suicides, because these young children were not prepared to face such challenges or failure. Who is the loser at the end? Everyone ofcourse; the students themselves, their parents, their former schools, their universities and the society at large. I need not elaborate on these.
In my opinion, I think the policy of using subject grades as a factor in admission should be cancelled. That was not the case in our time and our O’ Level results did not define what we achieved in higher education. I am an example. Many of my readers wondered how I managed to write brilliantly as I do now, in English Language. They will be shocked to know that I struggled to pass English Language at secondary school in WAEC. And I did not study English Language or Jornalism at higher levels. My whole WAEC result was nothing to celebrate as a local achievement, not to talk of national.
Yet, at the university, I had outstanding academic run, graduating with a First-Class (Honours) and as the Best Graduand in my department and faculty. Also, I had the Second Overall Best result in the whole university. If my WAEC grades were to be a factor in my admission, I would not even get to the university. Many years ago, I read of a boy who did JAMB four times before he got admission and he only managed to have credit pass (Cs) in most required subjects, only to come out with a perfect CGPA of 7/7 in the University of Ibadan, and as the Valedictorian. Such a person would not make it into the university today. So, that policy should be reversed.
The educational system should be overhauled. Too much emphasis should not be placed on going to the university alone. Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, Technical and Vocational Training Schools, should be made attractive to admission seekers too, by upgrading their standards. The stringent process of admission into the universities, which are “majorly” not based on merits but “favouritism” and even “commercialised”, should be looked into and stopped. It is discouraging hardworking and brilliant students who are denied admission because the larger percentage of admission slots have been “shared out” among the powers-that-be.
If what Osun State did is true as reported, all states should copy it. I know what Ota Total Academy does, all schools should copy that. Then, cases of examination malpractice will drastically reduce, if not eradicated completely. Each student will be well groomed, prepared for their academics at both secondary and higher institutions, and be able to face life challenges on their own without fear. Such incidents of students’ depression when they perform poorly or even committing suicide will stop. A stop must be put to this.
I congratulate the graduating students of Ota Total Academy, Ota, Ogun State and wish them greater successes in their future endeavours. Also, to their parents and the school management, I say; well done!
May God continue to protect us and guide us aright.
God Bless Nigeria.
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