For the past seven years, candidates' performance in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) has been abysmally poor. Each year has been worse that the preceding one, resulting in the failure of over 83% of millions of Nigerian candidates for the exam this year. This trend ought to worry parents, teachers, school proprietors and the leaders of this nation. But are they worried?
It is likely that WAEC has devised ways to check exam malpractice, leading to the failure of those that would have cheated. Poor funding of education will, however, remain the main culprit. Without a strong foundation in primary school, a child can hardly make it at the secondary or tertiary level. With the steady decline of education for probably the past 30 years, poorly educated students have made poor teachers. It's a vicious circle. Teachers do not teach and students do not learn.
Now that the 2009 budget is being prepared, shouldn't more attention be given to education? Efforts to revive public schools will entail hiring adequate and qualified teachers, paying teachers much more and equipping public schools better than private schools
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Wise counsel, Leadership. A govt that cares less about the poor always mortgage the future of its youth. India is a good example of a country that puts premium on the education of all its citizens, Brahmins and Untouchables, alike. The monies that the Nigerian govt should have allocated to basic needs of the common man such as schools and health clinics are been allocated to buy posh cars for members of the House of Reps. Whereas, as far back as the mid 1940s, a significant portion of India's annual budget went into education and as far back as the mid 1980s, the US has been poaching India's IT and finance industries' personnel. As a result, about 30% of US H-1B visa holders are from India - sending US-Dollars home to family & friends thereby boosting India's foreign exchange earnings which are wisely invested in money making project that caused the super growth of India's economy, vaunting it from a large-populated 3rd World country like Nigeria to its current status as an emerging market ready to ascend to a major economic power in the 18th global ranking. If India can do it, so can Nigeria if our leaders have the will & vision to attain OBJ's goal of 20/20. I strongly doubt that President Yaradua has neither the will nor the capability to accomplish anything by the time he leaves office in 2011. We are already back to square 1 we were in 1998 & aiming for the bottom 20 of global economies. What a way to go with our Nigerian shuffle - One step forward and 20 steps backwards. The greatest mistake Nigeria made was not approving OBJ's 3rd Term - the same deal that allowed Museveni to deliver an enormous economic growth & stability for Ugandans. Ditto for Cameroun, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, among other 3rd World countries with benevolent dictators, especially Chile under Pinochet & encouraged by the US in the 1970s / 1980s against Allende's democratically elected govt. Go figure.