Lagos — The fact that the standard of education in Nigerian has not fallen, rather it is the performance of students in examination that has continued to fall. This was the thrust of a presentation by Senior Deputy Registrar and Head, Research Division, WAEC, Dr. Sammuel Olu Adeyegbe at a one-day special seminar held in the Council's Onipanu-Shomolu, Lagos office, recently.

Adeyegbe in the lecture titled, " In Search of Indices for Measuring the Standard of Education: A Need for a Shift in Paradigm", said that the standard of education in the country has not fallen but performance of student has.

He said massive changes have taken place within the educational system over the years, which have impinged on several critical variables in the teaching and learning system.

Among such changes, Adeyegbe said, were school entry age, school completion age, expansion of curriculum contents and improved techniques of assessment.

"Little is confessed in the open by parents about the challenges which the homework brought by children constitute for them now and perhaps what it was like in their own younger days. Admission is more competitive now than three decades ago. I want to submit that these perhaps represent affront to standard and the authority of adults in making judgments about the standard of education", the Deputy Registrar noted.

The presentation, which examined the conventional conclusion by most Nigerians of falling standard of education against the backdrop of using statistics of performance as the major yardstick, first explored the definition and perception of standard and proceeds to illustrate that the usual judgment often passed on the standard of education was perhaps the product of prejudiced analysis.

Adeyegbe explained that when examined on a more objective note, the standard of education in the country may not be said to have fallen, judging from the changes that have taken place in many facets of the nation's educational system.

The yardstick with which the standard of education was being measured was the statistic of results from public examination, he said, "It may however be argued that be it in the finality of having fallen or the continuos contention of its downward trend, it is not often clear what indices, other than the performance statistics from WAEC, JAMB, NECO, NTI e.t.c were used to register what I would call fatalistic conclusion of fallen standard of education".

He therefore suggested the need for a shift in paradigm in respect of indices currently being used to measure the standard of education.

"I am of the opinion that there is a need for a shift in our paradigm for the criteria and indices we currently use to pass judgment on the prevailing standards of education in Nigeria.

He held that to do less was more of chasing the shadow than the substance, adding, "the standard of performance of students at the different levels of our education may have fallen but the standard of our education may not be so aptly described, at least of the primary and secondary levels".

Adeyegbe emphasised that there was a need to take cognisance of some other yardsticks in determining whether indeed the standard of education in the country has fallen or was static or had risen.

He therefore suggested twenty indices for measuring the standard of education as well as for comparing between what was in the past and what currently holds in the educational arena in a bid to say emphatically whether there was a fall or not in the standard of education in the county .