All Hope Isn’t Lost Yet: Students Failure Can Be A Thing Of The Past…

T he level at which the standard of education is dropping is disheartening. Examination bodies keep complaining that the level of success in examinations keeps dropping yearly. Statistics has shown that the level at which students pass external examinations is rather declining; a picture to this is the recent release of the 2014/2015 West Africa Examinations Council results, in which 38.68% passed with credits in 5 subjects, including English and Mathematics. 38.68%! Isn’t that depressing?

The question then is, why this annual drop? Are the examining bodies’ complicating their marking scheme? Or are their questions getting more difficult? If they actually are getting arduous, then the curriculum and syllabus the educational sector see to should have intensified their effort to cover up for the changes in the syllabus of examination bodies. The bitter truth is, their would be no changes in the syllabus of examination bodies without changes in the school syllabus, because what is been taught in school is what the students are been tested on. So what’s wrong?

School administrators vociferate at teachers, claiming they aren’t doing the needful. Some school administrators advice their teachers to start accessing their students with WAEC standard in their internal examinations, this actually cost more, because they tend to print more questions, offer practical exams, among other formal assessments examination bodies do. But then this is to help students get prepared to tackle external examinations when it comes. But still the pass rate is still low. Some teachers even go ahead by asking their students to buy past questions, so as for them to help there students with the ones which proves difficult, but above all, students still disappoint these efforts.

Parents see Parent-Teachers Association meeting days as days to tongue lash teachers, they talk unceasingly about the results of their children been woeful and many other important discuss, but to which they are great parts to. Most parents give no supporting hands to their children at all, all they say is “we have paid exorbitant fees and as such, the school should take care of things”, schools should better start taking meagre fees from parents, so that they can see to their responsibilities.

Literate parents, checking the position of their children to know whether to praise or rebuke them, what is to be said of this? Some parents are just amusing, when their children bring back home their report cards and they find it’s not what they expect, they start beating up the child, abusing and threatening him/her of taking them to other schools among other unnecessary things parents do, whereas, they didn’t do their own part too. After the hectic day at school, your child returns home to seat in front of the television to watch movies, play games or waste his or her time on music videos, surf the net aimlessly or waste too much time on social media, and the parent goes back to school to report he doesn’t read, while he/she displays all these at home. What are we then saying?

And the bulk of it all falls back on the students themselves, students are no longer serious. They misplace priorities, their attention get seized to things they don’t need. They no longer read and those who even read, read to put mouths off their issue, all they want is short-cut to success. Although we still have those who take pain to read, but those who don’t, take the bigger part of the chart, and then conclusion draws that, they all aren’t serious, just like the saying that “a rich man surrounded by paupers is also a pauper”. Students in recent time have put social media to debates, causing people to think its disadvantages are more than the good it does, but actually, there are more to it, those who use it wisely get satisfied and more experienced, while a host of others who use it wrongly get distracted the more. The issue of social media as a tool for educational degradation is another topic on its own, which would be discussed extensively in subsequent write ups.

Furthermore, students don’t understand what it means to learn or better still they don’t know how to learn. When a teacher finishes in class, after disseminating what they have for the class, we all know most teachers ask if students have questions, this some teachers enunciate reluctantly, but then, they still ask. Some students don’t get the discussion in class and still finds joy in keeping it to themselves, we understand that some students don’t like standing up amidst crowd to ask questions, but how does this type of student cover up? Reading after class would be the best solution to such case, but then the student helps him or herself only weeks before exam.

Then whose fault? Students should understand how fast or slow they learn, and know the ways to complement their learning skills, teachers could come in here, let a student know he learns averagely and the things he should do if he/she wants the best for him or herself. When students don’t read books that are relevant to their studies, how then would they read beyond?

Restoring the lost glory in our educational system is a collective task, which requires everyone to play their roles actively. Let students know the importance of reading, lets stimulate their interest towards reading, it could start from reading newspapers, magazines or other periodicals, and then the mind gets fixed and attached to it, then the student starts reading. Readers are leaders’ students, if you don’t read you can’t lead! Wole Soyinka was a reader, now he writes for readers, Isaac Newton studied hard, and his inventions and discoveries you read, study hard, as short-cuts to success leads one to nowhere. The best you can make of yourself is you. And so, Read to lead!

From the pulsating pen of Tijani sheriffdeen Opeyemi. A student of the University of Ilorin, of the department of Anatomy.

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