Examination failure must be seen as failure of the system – don Lagos – A Professor of Education, Pius Obanya, on Friday said that examination, as obtained in the Nigeria, must be restructured to achieve the desired objectives. Obanya, the Chairman, Governing Council of the West African Examination Council, was a discussant at the ongoing Retreat and Stakeholders’ Forum of the South-West Zone of the National Examinations Council (NECO), in Lagos. The seven-day retreat began on Wednesday. He said that examination in Nigeria must be made to enrich the education system by identifying areas of challenges and correcting them The don said that there was the need to institutionalise strong monitoring and evaluation units for all levels of education He urged more emphasis on provision of tools that would enrich learning and equip students adequately. “We tend to lay too much emphasis on certificates without ensuring that the necessary steps and processes that should give birth to these certificates are put in place. “The Ghana Universal Basic Education, which I borrowed from, for instance, has a ministry that goes from school to school and monitors and evaluates areas of need. “Sound and qualitative education does not start and end with the release of billions of naira, because these billions do not do the work if we do not apply human thinking on it,” he said. According to him, there is also the need to enrich the country’s education curricula, have teachers that teach and not coach, as well as put in place responsive pedagogy. Obanya urged that more steps should be taken to produce quality graduates. “We must begin to realise that education is not examination. It is a good thing to strive to have a certificate after going through any level of education, but the emphasis in today’s world is no longer on certificates but on personal qualities. “We must work toward de-emphasising this craze for certificate acquisition by re- inventing the system and enriching our curriculum. “Examination failure must be seen as the failure of the system which, therefore, means that we must go back to the basics to trace where the problems came from,’’ the don said. The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Education, Rep. Aminu Suleiman, called on education stakeholders to come up with ideas that would make NECO to rank among the best examination bodies in the world. Suleiman said that the National Assembly would do its best to ensure quality education in Nigeria. He said that the legislature would also support NECO in its bid to re-position to discharge its duties better. According to him, the quality of education in the country, using recent results of the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination as a yard stick, gives cause for concern. He said that there was the need for innovations that would make school curricula more relevant to the needs of the learner and society. Earlier, in a paper, Vice-Chancellor, Sokoto State University, Prof. Nuhu Yaqub, said Nigeria’s education standards could improve with the determination of all stakeholders. Yaqub delivered a paper on “Repositioning NECO for More Effective Delivery: A Collective Task’’. He said that there must be moral revolution that would not spare anyone found guilty of compromising national aspirations.. “NECO has chalked up some significant achievements in its short span of existence; most, if not all of these, must be retained and sustained. “I must also recommend constant review, with stakeholders, of these achievements with a view to re-jigging them for continuous relevance,” Yaqub, a former Vice-Chancellor, University of Abuja, said. The don said that the council was among the public institutions that had laid a solid foundation for sustainable growth and development. Earlier, the Chairman of NECO’s Governing Board, Dr Paddy Njoku, said that education could not be valued without a proper measurement and evaluation framework. Njoku said that the framework was the major area of concentration of the council. He said that as a growing dynamic organisation, there must be challenges for NECO, noting that the capacity to resolve and manage them was critical. The chairman implored stakeholders to join hands to make NECO a reliable organ for education measurement in Africa. (NAN)
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 09:55:37 +0000
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