By Peter Ogudoro, PhD
The poor performance of candidates in this year’s JAMB UTME should be examined with care so we do not throw away the child with the birth water. True, most candidates for this test are usually poorly prepared for it. JAMB UTME calls for higher cognitive ability than what is needed for WASSCE but candidates are made to confront this test before they sit for WASSCE. Most of the candidates for UTME are not aware of the syllabus for this test which is significantly more demanding than the syllabus for WASSCE. Secondary schools focus on WASSCE, not UTME, but most of the candidates for UTME are currently in their final year in secondary school.
The average Nigerian child in secondary school is being taught by teachers who are poorly trained, recognized, and rewarded and who are working in a grossly under resourced education system with poor laboratory equipment. Teachers over focus on getting students ready for exam and not helping them to learn and be truly educated. There is little or no attention paid to helping students understand the knowledge they are consuming. Many teachers do not even understand what they are teaching and cannot demonstrate how the concepts they present to students can be applied to real life situations. Students are not helped to acquire analytical ability and the capacity to synthesize knowledge which UTME requires. To make matters worse, we require them to prove what they know via computer. We know that most of the candidates sitting for both WASSCE and UTME have not studied in schools where computers are in use as standard tools for teaching and learning. The argument that they need only a few keys to respond to the questions in the test is not tenable. Digital devices come with phobia. You get better with them as they become familiar. If scientific investigation is conducted into the last UTME, we are likely to realize that significant infrastructural challenges bedevilled the test. So, some candidates might have performed poorly despite having the right subject knowledge.
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The argument that students are distracted by social media is one no one should dismiss with a wave of the hand. Yes, many students are on social media at the expense of their studies. Why is that the situation? Many of them do not find academics meaningful. Most of our classrooms are not engaging. Most teachers lack the pedagogical tools to make students find joy in learning. Parents, teachers and schools worry a lot about the need for students to pass exams so they can get the credentials for further education and meal tickets in an environment where many employers still hire on the basis of academic credentials, not the problems people can solve. Education has also been discredited in a country where school dropouts become political masters and money bags. Many students are searching for income on the internet so they can put food on the table for their families and pay their school fees in a country where public schools have been discredited. As a researcher in the global education industry, and a parent myself, I know that students can be trained to use their digital devices to study and pursue honourable purposes. Teachers are not omniscient. They should be facilitators in their classrooms. Students can be trained to use their digital devices to learn from a global audience and become more creative and innovative. The campaign against phones in schools should be done with caution. In the world we live in today, both teachers and students need digital devices to be productive and globally competitive. If we are willing to try, we can train our teachers and students to use their phones productively. I achieve this in all the contexts where I have played teaching and education leadership roles. We should quit the habit of dismissing things we do not understand. Humility demands that we seek help when we are in need.
Teachers are critical members of the education space, but Nigeria treats them poorly. Most private schools in Nigeria pay wages that are below the minimum wage prescribed by law and many teachers work in schools run by businesspeople who prioritize profitability over learning. We lack good teachers in Mathematics, English Language, Physics, English Literature, and Chemistry. Outstanding students do not study education courses. In the absence of competent teachers in such foundational subjects, students struggle with learning. We are expecting too much from students we have not given a lot. Research evidence indicates that Nigerian teenagers look forward to holidays because they do not derive joy from schooling in environments where education does not happen. Career Management systems that can mitigate some of the challenges young people face in the school system are not in place in most schools. The counsellors in most schools are not offering professional counselling services. I do research in this field globally and can confirm that not up to one per cent of students in Nigerian secondary schools have access to professionally delivered career management services. This largely accounts for students entering for subjects, courses, and universities they lack the gifts and aptitudes for. Many teenagers insisting on Medicine, Engineering, Pharmacy, Accounting, and Computer Science have no business looking in those directions. Many parents are pushing their children in the wrong directions. The world we live in today offers many disciplines that schools do not expose students to in Nigeria. This is one of the reasons why drop out rate is very high in medical schools in Nigeria and why those who manage to become doctors after many years of hard work in Nigerian universities head to the UK, USA, and Middle East when they graduate.
We can do better as a country. We are failing our children and blaming them for the failure of the poor education system we are running. The teenagers who sat for the last JAMB UTME are not guilty as charged. They are victims of systemic flaws that are not impossible to fix. We should end the habit of blaming victims and absolving the adults who run our education system of blame. Students who are taught well and who learn meaningful things in school will not indulge in examination malpractice. That is what evidence from research says. Systems that glorify academic credentials and distribute higher education, and job opportunities on the basis of standardized test scores will encourage examination malpractice. Research evidence says that too. Let us get the right education philosophy for Nigeria. Let us incentivize outstanding young people to study education courses. Let us respect teachers and remunerate them adequately for their indispensable role in national development. Let us stop abusing educated people so our children can find the motivation to invest their energies in learning for the joy that comes from it. We should stop making students believe that they are in school just to earn meal tickets. They should be in school to learn just for the joy of it. Other benefits of learning will inevitably follow. That is what we find in the Scandinavian region where examinations are not at the heart of what teachers do. We can get it right if we want to.
