For any observer, the National Examinations Council (NECO) 2009 November/December results released last Tuesday must have left a sour taste in the mouth.
Not only was it depressing, it also flagged off serious concern about the downward slide of the country’s educational system.
It gets worse
Lere Olaewe, a lecturer at a College of Education in Ilesa, Osun State, said “We never had it so bad. I was a secondary school teacher before, but I can say confidently that the introduction of NECO to boost the education system has failed because secondary school examinations results were better before NECO started.”
Mr. Olaewe added that the results, where less than five percent of the candidates passed English Language and Mathematics even with the increased government budget for education, “calls for sober moment in a country that claims to have a youth population of over 70 million.”
He added that it is never too late to begin a revolution in the sector, but wondered where the revolution will start. “Tell me where the solution will come from when the students and their parents are not even helping issues,” he said. “All they want is just to have the result and that is why we at the higher institutions face hell when they get here.”
Unholy desire
Mr. Olaewe perhaps hit the nail on the head with his comments. Many in the education sector point to a collaboration between students, aided by parents and teachers in many cases, to cheat at all costs, leading to a complete refusal to prepare and then failure after such candidates are detected or caught at different stages of the examinations.
This has also given rise to “wonder centres”, so called because they are locations where candidates,
abetted by some instructors and with the connivance of staff of different examination bodies, help in ‘facilitating’ success for them.
Abifarin Adeolu is a student who had five credits in the last NECO examinations, but only a pass in English language. Nonetheless, he remains confident that he will gain admission into a higher institution.
“I am not sad, are you the one that bought the form for me?” He asked this reporter at a cybercafe where he went to check his results. “I will even come and show you my admission letter.”
His confidence angered Zeth Agelebe, the cybercafé owner, who expressed anger at the over reliance of candidates on the wonder examination centres. “You can pass the examination when you have money, that’s the only thing they know,” Mr. Agelebe said.
Wonder, wonder
But not everyone who takes the ‘wonder option’ has a good story at the end of the day. One of those who have been duped in the process is Ojikutu Abimbola, a barber in Shomolu, Lagos who claimed he was duped of N50, 000 by one of the centres. “I saw the poster and call one of the phone numbers. We arranged to meet and that was the beginning; he promised to get someone that will sit for the exam and increased my fee which I paid; every time he will come to me for this and that money. Since then I can’t find him again,” Mr. Akintola explained in Yoruba.
These acclaimed centres usually post their posters around the city centres and in the rural areas relying on their contacts to get students. Sometimes it is an unusual thing when rural schools and centres have better patronage than the ones with good laboratory equipment and teachers to teach them. Slogans like, “your messiah is here,” “100% assurance success,” “it is your time to shine,” and so many others are the attractions used by these centres.
Questions and more questions
Anthony Adepoju, a lawyer, raises questions about the operation of the centres. “What is it about these centres? Who gave them the authority to sell forms and open petty markets on educational issues? I don’t think we have any serious examination body, all we have are just means to get a piece of paper called results,” Mr. Adepoju said.
A NECO official who did not want to be identified disclosed that the examination cards are expected to be sold only by area offices and designated banks. “No, we don’t ask any vendor to sell NECO forms,” he said. “Only banks and offices can sell the forms, but nowadays you find them everywhere. That is our people for you and what can people like us do?”
Whilst this surely raises questions of process, Farouk Lawan, the House of Representatives education committee chairman, said “It’s not only NECO that should be asked questions.”
“Once we recognised that all of us are responsible in ensuring good education, then we should all be asking the questions,” Mr. Lawan said. “What we are seeing now is a failure of all of us in the sector. Education in Nigeria suffers poor funding, poor attention, poor infrastructure, inadequacy of teaching materials, lack of proper motivation of the teachers, insufficient teachers and even a very large percentage of the available teachers are not qualified to teach.”
It’s all rubbish?
However, the exam body NECO has been mired in controversy since it was established in 2000 by former president Olusegun Obasanjo. When the present Registrar, Promise Okpala, assumed office in 2006, he admitted the inability of the council to provide certificates for candidates who sat for its examinations between 2002 and 2006.
Also, despite the fact that candidates pay for the examinations, Mr. Okpala, in a previous interview, had said that the council survives on loans secured from commercial banks.
“It is not true that we make huge money from examinations fees,” he said. “In fact, let me tell you that the money we realise from examination fees is far lower than what we spend to conduct the exams. That is why NECO had to borrow money to run the exams.”
This all contributes to a sense of confusion, one best captured by Kamoru Aminu, a father who followed his son to a cybercafé to check his results. “When we were young, We use to get the forms, fill and submit, but it has all changed,” he reported. “Now I am not even sure if he sat for the exam. It is all rubbish; I can’t continue wasting my money.”
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