From: Mobolaji ALUKO <alukome@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 12:10 AM
Subject: UN-STAR INFORMATION: Inside NECO's (and WAEC's) national tragedy of sorts
To: NaijaPolitics e-Group <NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com>, naijaintellects <naijaintellects@googlegroups.com>, OmoOdua <OmoOdua@yahoogroups.com>, ekiti ekitigroups <ekitipanupo@yahoogroups.com>, NIDOA <NIDOA@yahoogroups.com>, Ekiti peoples voice Ekiti peoples voice <ekitipeoplesvoice@yahoogroups.com>
May/June 2009 NECO Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE)
Number of candidates................................................................... 1,184,907 candidates
Passes with Five credits including English and Mathematics...............126,500.........................10.68%
Passes with Five credits..................................................................289,966...........................24.47%
Cases of malpractices recorded .........................................................32,414
Malpractices (in order ..)
1. Enugu
2. Akwa Ibom
3. Rivers states
.....
November/December 2009 NECO Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE)
Number of centers..........................................................................1,708
Number of candidates....................................................................236,613 candidates
Average number of candidates per center ........................................~140 candidates
Passes
Five credits including English and Mathematics...................................4,223.......1.78 percent
Five credits irrespective of subjects ..................................................12,197 ......5.20 percent
1. Oyo State.....................................................................................1,240 .....3.02 percent.........out of............41,000 total
2. Ogun State...................................................................................1,076.......5.25 percent.........out of.............20,500 total
3. Lagos state.....................................................................................900.......5.45 percent..........out of........... 16,520 total
4. Abia State .......................................................................................39........4.41 percent. ........out of................890 total
...........
37. Niger State.....................................................................................150 ........0.88 percent.........out of............16,984 total
Malpractices
1. Kogi State - 27.63 percent
2. Bauchi State- 23.08 percent
3. Ondo State - 23.06 percent.
.......
35. Oyo - 4.63 percent
36. Abia with 1.72 percent
37. FCT Abuja - 1.14 percent,
-----------------------------------------------
Numbers and Percentages of Candidates in WASSCE in Nigeria between 2004 and 2009
| Year | No. of Students May/June | No. of Students Nov/December | % with >= 5 credits (incl. English&Math) In May/June exams | % with >= 5 credits (incl. English&Math) In Nov/Dec exams | Comment |
| 2004 | 1,052,672 | 513,451 | ? | ? |
|
| 2005 | 1,091,676 | 398,689 | 27.53 | ? |
|
| 2006 | 1,184,384 | 423,518 | 15.56 | ? |
|
| 2007 | 1,275,330 | 378,018 | 25.54 | 19.87 |
|
| 2008 | 1,369,142 | 372,600 | 13.76 | ? |
|
| 2009 | 1,373,009 | 342,443 | 25.99 | 31.07 | In Nov/Dec: >2 credits: 77.48% >3 credits: 67.2% >4 credits:56.30% >5 credits:44.36% >6 credits:31.70% |
MASS FAILURE IN WAEC AND NECO EXAMS
Written by furtune Education Oct 19, 2009Mass failure in WAEC and NECO exams
THE scandalously poor results in the Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) in May/June are clear indications of a progressive slide into the abyss by a rather uncoordinated educational system in urgent need of redemption. The affected students are products of years of decay in a key sector of the economy. The system has failed them.
From the analyses of the examination bodies, most schools – and students – posted horrible results. This should compel the authorities to start thinking about an interventionist measure to arrest the decline. In its assessment of the performance of 1,184,907 candidates who wrote the exams out of the 1,200,765 registered, NECO recorded just 126,500 candidates – about 10.53 per cent – with five credits or higher scores in subjects including English Language and Mathematics, the acceptable basic standard for admission into tertiary institutions. English and Mathematics notwithstanding however, only 289,966 or about 24.15 per cent of the candidates made five credits in the examination, according to NECO Registrar, Prof. Promise Okpala who also announced 32,423 cases of examination malpractice with Enugu, Akwa Ibom and Rivers states as the leading culprits.
The West African Examinations Council said only 356,981 candidates representing 25.99 per cent of the 1,373,009 entries got the requisite basic qualification grades of five credits and above, including English and Mathematics. About 75 per cent failed to make five credits including the two key subjects. Depressing as this may be, this year's WAEC results seem to be an improvement on last year's. In 2008, only 13.76 per cent of the 1,369,142 candidates on the council's schedule achieved credit pass in five subjects. Two years earlier in the November 2006 GCE exams, only 11.6 per cent of the 423,518 candidates got the required credit grades.
These results are certainly discouraging especially for parents who may have laboured hard to see their wards through that level of education which is too important to be ignored. Yet, the phenomenon of mass failure has been a recurring feature of national life over the past decade or so. Significantly, almost all stakeholders are guilty. The public school system has suffered serious neglect, hence its near-total collapse, while most private schools only exist for the purpose of financial gains. Today, most students exhibit such a high level of ignorance and illiteracy resulting from the weak instruction that they receive and this is more the case in public schools. The downturn in the economy has also affected many homes and families; parents are so distracted they can hardly spare the time to monitor their children's education.
Regrettably, teachers in public schools are almost always called out on strike to protest poor conditions of service. With its confusing web of policy sommersaults, government should take a lion share of the blame. Funding, at every level, is grossly inadequate. When secondary school students fail so terribly, the clear indication is that the country is reaping the harvest of its poor investment in education and the future of young Nigerians. The collapse of societal values also affects the young ones. Parents are no longer role models for excellence. Teachers are corrupt and undisciplined. In many schools, both parents and teachers collude to encourage examination malpractice. Questions can also be raised about test administration and rules enforcement. Standards are daily being compromised even by the examination authorities.
A worrisome aspect of it all is that even with many choices open to candidates in WAEC and NECO examinations – including the General Certificate of Education (GCE) for private candidates – it still remains a herculean task for students to pass examinations. Many of them end up combining different results to get the needed minimum of five credits for college admissions. This should be discouraged. Every aspect of the education sector from the primary level is in ruins, raising serious questions about the capacity of certain public officials in positions of authority to discharge their duties well and the government's sincerity about standards and human resource development.
There is a compelling reason to overhaul the system: the education sector must be better funded, policies need proper coordination, teachers' welfare ought to be addressed, standards must be upgraded. Promotion exams should be better organised to discontinue the current practice in public schools of automatic mass movement from one class to the other. Discipline should be enforced. The government should show greater concern about teacher-education if the nation must reverse the systemic failure.
| Inside NECO's national tragedy of sorts |
|
Written by Abdullahi Yahaya Bello, Amina Alhassan, Sikiru Jimoh, Abuja, Ayegba Israel Ebije, Minna, Mohammed Bello, Port-Harcourt, Isiaka Wakili, Lokoja, Seun Joseph, Lagos, Ismail Mudashir, Kaduna & Jaafar Jaafar, Kano |
|
Friday, 02 April 2010 21:57 |
- Over 3,000 cases of cheating recorded
As the failure level of senior secondary school leavers continues to soar, concern continues to build up on the state of Nigeria's academic fortunes against the backdrop of pursuit of excellence in human capital development. The steady fall in the educational sector as reflected in the churning out of half-baked students in schools across the country, appears to have given rise to the recent outcome of National Examination Council (NECO) exams, drawing reactions from different strata of society.
The November/December 2009 NECO Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) result has further eroded hopes for improvement in the academic field as it fell further past last year May/June's internal results, which were also bedevilled by mass failure. Only 1.80 percent of candidates that sat for the November 2009 NECO examination passed with five credits including English and Mathematics, while the May/June examination recorded a paltry 10 percent success level.
Shocking numbers
Statistical analysis shows that 1.80 percent that passed represent 4,223 candidates out of the total of 236,613 that sat for the examination across 1,708 centres spread across the country where the examinations were conducted. Those who scored above five credits irrespective of subjects were 12,197 representing 5.20 percent, adding that total cases of examination-related malpractices amounted to 236,613.
Ogun State came best with 1,076 representing 5.25 percent, while Lagos state produced the second best with 900 candidates, representing 5.45 percent then Abia recorded 39 candidates representing 4.41 percent. The records also showed cases of malpractice ranking Kogi State highest with 27.63 percent, with Bauchi coming next with 23.08 percent and Ondo third with 23.06 percent.
Places where malpractices were recorded less includes, FCT Abuja, ranking lowest with 1.14 percent, then Abia with 1.72 percent while Oyo came third with 4.63 percent. A close glance at last May/June's examination results shows a sharp decline in the performance of students as at least 10 percent passed while the November/December results showed less than two percent success. From the statistics, out of a total number of 1,184,907 candidates who applied for the May/June 2009 examinations only 289,966 representing 10 percent of the entire number passed five papers including mathematics and English language.
Let the blame-trading begin
From same examination, a record breaking number of 32,414 cases of malpractices was recorded out of a total of 1,184, 907 candidates that sat for the SSCE across the country. According to the Registrar of NECO, Professor Promise Okpala, the examination body over the years has continued to advance techniques on checking malpractice at all levels. Blaming the mass cases of examination malpractices in secondary schools on the society, Okpala told Weekly Trust that schools, parents and pupils are to blame, adding that until a positive attitude towards learning is cultivated, the trend will continue. "The question we need to ask ourselves is whether the students are well-taught or if the classrooms are conducive enough for learning as our schools have compromised in standards of education," he said, adding that the tightened security measures in examination halls has exposed how unprepared students are across the country, as it has shown in what he termed as the most abysmal results in recent times. "We have realized that the concept of mass cheating is not limited to students but principals and teachers too," he said.
Contending Okpala's position, the principal of a secondary school at the Chanchaga area of Minna, Niger State, said most schools are putting in their best to ensure that students get the best, academically. In his reaction he maintained that after giving so much to students the school and the teaching staff cannot be held responsible if the students fail to deliver. Reflecting on what obtained in the past at the school he heads, the principal noted that his students were doing well until suddenly the results nosedived.
A director at the Federal Ministry of Education who spoke to Weekly Trust on condition of anonymity said NECO cannot be blamed for the mass failure that happened during the last exams as some of the schools are the actual culprits. "Some schools do not engage the services of qualified teachers. Half-baked teachers with low knowledge of the subject they are teaching is one of the major banes," she said, adding that there is the need for schools and major stakeholders in the education sector to pull all their acts together. "We cannot afford to take the education of our future leaders for granted," she said.
Dr Eric Amadi, an educationist who lectures at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) opines that the result is a reflection of the years of neglect that the education sector has suffered under successive governments in the country. "Students cut corners but come out half-baked due to many factors. Some of these are inadequate equipment, poor reading culture, encouragement of desperate parents who want their children to have dazzling results at any cost," Dr Amadi explained told Weekly Trust. He said the antidote is for government at all levels to invest in education in a way that will conform to the prescription of UNESCO, which stipulates that a minimum of 26% of a country's budget should go into funding education.
On her part, Elizabeth Ikinger, a teacher in Community Secondary School, Bolo in Okrika local government area of Rivers State refused to believe in the NECO statistics. She asked "Is it that teaching did not take place anywhere in the country or that students did not register for the examinations?" She said it is not possible for such thing to have occured unless if all the students stayed away and had proxy representation in the examination halls. "NECO should review their marking scheme," she suggested.
Students...of failure?
Some of the affected students have come out boldly to state why they failed woefully in their exams. According to one Happiness Atumo, who got only three credits out of the nine subjects she entered for, "I failed because of lack of adequate preparation, interest and also because our teachers don't come to class to teach."
Oge Agamu, who wrote her NECO exam at a school in Ketu, Lagos, got five credits and is now preparing for the forthcoming WAEC. She said she failed due to a lack of textbooks and concentration. Anita Umoren, who narrowly obtained four credits without English and Maths from a school in Surulere, Lagos, believed her failure in the NECO exams is to be blamed on the buying-over of external supervisors who now permit only those who have money to bribe them with during exams.
Abass Tiamiyu, a former student of Living-Stone Model College, Ketu, told Weekly Trust that many secondary school students are exposed to many distractions. Then according to Rilwan Lasisi, from a school in Igando-Ikotun local government, "Most times, many students rely on 'expo' (leaked questions) to pass exams, but quite often it doesn't always work out as expected as it may be fake. Students who have not studied for the exams will definitely fail woefully."
However, Mr.Ojolo Olufemi, director of Larafem Tutorial Centre in Mile Two, Lagos, maintained that the problem requires more urgent action than pointing of fingers, as everybody is guilty. The Educationist revealed that students come to tutorial centres looking for 'runs', which simply means external help of any sort – mostly illegal – during or after exams.
The National Parents/Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) also raised alarm over the continued poor performance of students. The body made this resolution at its 70th National Executive meeting which was attended by all its members from across the country. Various issues plaguing the educational sector were deliberated upon, after which a communiqué was released. The body maintained that it has reviewed the performance of students at the recently released 2009 NECO examination and noticed that the standard of education is gradually falling. NAPTAN urged the federal, state and local governments to as a matter of urgency organize an education summit with all the stakeholders in the sector to discuss the way forward.
Stakeholders driving a stake through education's heart?
A one-time commissioner of education in Kaduna State, Mr. Tom Maiyashi, blamed governors and those managing the education sector for its problems. "Many people who found themselves managing education have no business in the sector, they don't have the correct attitude, they don't know the problems of the sector, they don't understand the challenges," he added. According to him, the structure of education is so bad that the classroom is remote, so far away from the structure as all those claiming to be working for the revival of the sector are not serious. "We have not been able to take a decisive decision to make sure that the appropriate resources that are required are invested in the education sector go round all the state and ask the governors or the commissioners of education what the unit cost of education in their state is, they don't know. You need to know the unit cost of education for you to have good education policies," he said.
Kano State Governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, heaping blame on his predecessor while responding to a caller's question last week on a phone-in radio programme, said the state was still bearing the brunt of the exit of some experienced teachers on the premise that they were not indigenes of the state. He said the sack of such experienced hands might be linked to failures in NECO in the state. According to him, although on assumption into office, he immediately employed 5,000 teachers to save the collapse of the system, he said ghosts of the sacked teachers still haunt the state's education sector.
But the principal of Spring Secondary School, Kano, Mr. Patrick Okezie, attributed the failure to unavailability of reading materials and added that some teachers lack experience of the technicalities inherent in answering SSCE questions. "So if the teachers lack such experience, the students would not know how to tackle the questions," said Mr Okezie, who is also a NECO examiner. A senior NECO official in Kano Zonal Office said the students do not read the syllabus as much as they either engage in playing football or watching English Premier League, among others. The official said NECO would not just fail the students without a reason. According to him, each state's paper was usually swapped with another state's paper with a view to ensuring fairness and credibility. Although he said the percentage of the failure was yet to be available to them, indications showed that the state also felt the heat of the failure rather severely.
Professor Ukachkwu Awuzie, President, Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU), said the poor performance in the NECO exams is not surprising as most discerning Nigerians saw it coming. "We like to play the ostrich in this country. We are creating an impression as if the result the NECO exam jolted us out of the blue. What on earth do you expect to happen in a system that has continuously failed to invest in education?"
Awuzie toldd Weekly Trust that ASUU is about convening a national summit on education to address issues. "We in ASUU are already planning a comprehensive national education summit where people like Professor Babatunde Fafunwa and others who have been in education all these years will be there. The summit will address the issue of funding, curriculum and reformatory education that will instil discipline and patriotism among students." But Hamza Lawal, an external candidate based in Kaduna, smirked at the mention of the summit. "It will most likely be another lofty idea, full of talk and absolutely no action," he told Weekly Trust, adding that scepticism aside, he hopes it works, even if a little. "Education, from the bottom up, is rotting fast in this country," Lawal said, shaking his head.
_______________________
2010-03-17 http://www.enownow.com/news/story.php?sno=5690
98% Of Candidates NECO Exams In Nigeria
No fewer than ninety eight percent of candidates who sat for the last National Examination Council {NECO}exams failed, this was revealed in the result released by the body on Tuesday.
NECO’s Chief Executive Registrar, Prof Promise Okpala, told reporters in Minna, Niger State, on Tuesday that
Only 4,223 of the 236,613 candidates who sat for last year’s November/December external Senior Secondary School Examination (SSCE) of the National Examination Council (NECO) had credits in five subjects including English and Mathematics.
The figure represents less than two per cent of those who took the examination.
The examination was conducted in 1,708 centers and 236,613 cases of malpractices were recorded in various subjects.
Giving a breakdown of the results, Okpala said Oyo State presented over 41,000 candidates, the highest for the examination. 1,240 of them had five credits.
Lagos State came next with 900 candidates. Only 150 of the 16,984 candidates presented by Niger State had five credits.
Prof Okpala also stated that 12,197 other candidates had five credits irrespective of the subjects.
The registrar named Kogi State as the highest with examination malpractices. It is followed by Bauchi State with 23.08 per cent and Ondo State with 23.06 per cent.
--------------------
Nigeria: Beyond the NECO Disaster
Sanusi Abubakar
23 March 2010
opinion
What can anyone say? We all knew it would come to this, we just did not realise it would be this soon. Now that the proverbial shit has hit the fan, we may be forced to seriously consider how to clean up this mess. That is if we care to pay attention at all.
While the nation remains focused on the "hide and seek" between Yar'adua's people and an anxious citizenry, on the genocide-mess in Jos and its' environs, or even on the colossal losses in Kano, Maiduguri and Bauchi recent market fires, all flaring up within some 48 hours, which destroyed over N10 billion worth of merchandise, details of yet another disaster, with much longer lasting consequences, were being released, this time by the Minna based National Examination Council, NECO. No one seems to be paying attention.
Of the 245,157 who registered for its' November/December 2009 Senior Secondary Certificate Exam, NECO said 234,682 actually sat and only 4,223 or 1.8% passed, meaning they got credits in at least five subjects including English and Mathematics. (About half of those who passed are from two states only; Ogun and Lagos.) To think that after 12 years of educational instructions over 98 percent of our kids would still fail the final exams is, to say the least, very frightening indeed. But that is exactly what NECO is telling a nation which seems preoccupied with other issues. We need to pay attention. Something serious is happening to our kids and their future.
Not long ago, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) exams were more difficult and NECO was very cheap. Thus, when that body released the results of the November/December 2009 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) (External), with only 31% passes out of 342,443 candidates, and withheld results of 57,792 (or 16.87%) because of malpractices, we were worried but not surprised. We were reassured by WAEC that things were not that bad. When all the SSCE results for 2009 are combined, Nigeria's performance in that year was 25%, which is said to be the best among the WAEC member countries, which include Ghana, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia. But then, of the 1,200,765 candidates who registered for the May/June NECO examinations, only 126,500 (or 10.7%) secured five credits, including English and Mathematics. So clearly, all was not well and we have no reason to remain complacent.
So what really is wrong? Let us start by eliminating some confusion. Even if we are ignoring English and Mathematics and prefer to consider anyone who has at least five credits, the picture is still gloomy. For NECO May/June exams 24.5% of the candidates came out with five credits irrespective of subjects. For the November/December exams the figure is 5.20%. So, even if we prefer to excuse them because there are insufficient Mathematics and/or English teachers, the situation is still dire. Are these kids being taught? Did NECO administer the tests and marked the scripts correctly? We don't know, but there are even more serious issues.
It is now clear that we are living a lie. Our education has collapsed and things are not improving. Resources allocated to the educational sector may be insufficient, but even the little that is supposed to be invested is actually stolen. But that for now may even be the least of our worries. The truth is that there are no teachers. They are neither sufficient, nor trained and certainly not motivated. And we are ignoring this issue to our peril. This really first struck me during some official assignment to the Federal College of Education (Technical) Potiskum, Yobe State. We met a school with enough structures, more than adequate equipment but clearly bound to produce only mediocre, unmotivated teachers ready on graduation to pounce on any available job anywhere but in teaching. And we all knew this was bound to happen. We encourage the best students to aim for the universities, preferably to pursue professional careers with better financial prospects. Those not lucky enough would try for a polytechnic diploma. Those without any other choice reluctantly accept a place in colleges of education, always nursing hopes of escaping to some other line as soon as they see an opening. Now, how do you seriously hope to produce well trained teachers when the base from which you are recruiting is that narrow? How can you ever hope for motivated teachers from those who themselves almost hate the profession? And why should they like it when society itself neither recognises their role nor reward their contribution adequately? This approach cannot but produce this type of massive failures we are witnessing, who inevitably end up in the universities, polytechnics and teacher training colleges, in that order of preference, and we continue to pretend that this same vicious cycle would produce the teachers to remedy the mess.
We must be ready to pay teacher better. However, even as we agree with ASUU when it argues that "if you pay teachers peanut, you end up with monkeys" the extension of that is no matter how much water and fertilizer you feed weeds they remain weeds, and would not yield any edible crop. They must be weeded out if the system is to progress.
But even the failure rate is nothing compared to another more sinister trend; the mainstreaming of corruption and exam malpractice. All the papers quoted NECO Registrar Promise Okpalla's figure of 236,613 being the number of those involved in exam malpractice during the November/December exams under reference. But he also told us that 234,682 candidates sat for the exam, a figure lower than those involved in malpractices. (Even going online did not resolve this confusion.) Even if the figure is about 50% as in previous exams conducted by the same council, it is a disaster of very serious magnitude. The implications are shocking. If more than half of our future generation is willing to resort to criminal and dishonest means to get a fake certificate then we must ask what their parents, relations, friends and teachers (yes even teachers!) are telling them. This winning "at any costs" syndrome must be addressed.
The other side of the coin is institutional corruption. Tens of thousands of mushroom "coaching centres" and even some private schools have emerged whose main promise is guaranteeing candidates they could help them pass by "assisting" them with exam questions in advance, and "preparing" them to beat the system. This is so rampant and must be with the connivance of some NECO/WAEC staff, and is obviously very rewarding.
Come to think of it, we once had only GCE or WASC. Now parents have to pay for at least three exams after SS3, i.e. NECO, WAEC and JAMB (and, to add insult to injury, some fraud called "post-JAMB"!) And you have to buy scratch cards to see your result!! Some even go for London GCE. The system is so commercialised and most of those involved are only interested in milking the parents and the candidates.
But then again, why do we need NECO? Won't WAEC be enough? We don't know what to teach the kids, or how. Now we are not sure if we can even assess them. For my part I would prefer one exam at the end of the SSS years, as well as well equipped schools that actually teach something. Is that asking for too much?
_________________________________________________
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