The Emergency Meeting Northern Governors Should Be Holding

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“It’s high time our Northern governors  spared a thought for the poor performing students in their region.”

Olabisi Deji-Folutile

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Left to our  19 Northern States’ governors and Nigeria’s Education Minister Adamu Adamu, the over 1.5 million candidates that sat this year’s West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) would have probably waited for another  year before taking the exam.  We owe the West African Examination Council (WAEC) thanks for sticking to its timetable in the face of intimidation and harassment. Some people in government had threatened that Nigeria would use its financial power in the regional body to keep the exam body in line, that also didn’t work.

People like Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde should also be commended for being pragmatic and taking appropriate steps towards conducting the exam. He did that at a time when many of his colleagues in the South West were still dilly dallying, not sure of what to do. The exciting news is that Nigeria’s 1,538, 445 candidates had not only sat the exam, there was no record of any of the candidates dying from COVID-19. What is more, WAEC has released the results and candidates’ performance this year has been impressive.

This year’s results indicate that a total of 1,003,668 candidates, representing 65.24% of candidates that sat the exam, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics. This percentage is not only higher than last year’s put at 64.18%, but the past five years.  Candidates need a minimum of five credits that must include credit in maths and English to gain admission to a tertiary institution in Nigeria.

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Though marginal, 1.06% improvement in candidates’ performance this year compared with last year calls for celebration especially considering the mental torture that many of these candidates had to contend with before the exam. COVID-19 brought more than its own fair share of pressure. Combining that with the discordant views from Nigeria’s ministers of education on whether the exam would hold or not was unnerving.  At a point, Nigeria’s 19 northern states said their children were not ready to take the exam. Education minister Adamu also said he would prefer the candidates to lose one year than lose their lives.

Now that all fears about the exam have been demystified, I hope our Northern states governors and other officials in the education sector can now begin to see the danger in holding down the collective destiny of young children for flimsy reasons.   These candidates would have wasted one year for nothing. Analysis of the candidates’  performance in the last    five years shows that in 2016, the total percentage  of candidates that obtained credits and above in minimum of five subjects including English Language and Mathematics was 52.97%,  2017,  59.22% ,  in 2018, 49.98% , 2019,64.18% and 2020, 65.24%.

However, when we look at states with lowest percentage of candidates that achieved five credits and above including Mathematics and English Language in WASSCE in all these years, most of them are in the north.  A study of Validated May/June WAEC results for each State in Nigeria from 2014 to 2018 shows Abia State had the highest mean percentage of 74.11% performance  and Jigawa State 10.08% attaining the 1st and 36th positions respectively. States that have consistently had poor performance in WASSCE are Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kebbi, Niger, Osun, Plateau, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara. From this statistics, it is clear that of the 11 laggards, 10 are from the north.

Similarly, of the 15 states that have consistently had low percentage (below average percentage) representation of candidates in WASSCE, eight are from the north.  These states are Adamawa, Bayelsa, Borno, Ebonyi, Ekiti, FCT, Gombe, Jigawa, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Ondo, Sokoto, Yobe, Zamfara with Yobe having the lowest for four consecutive years.

Attesting to the poor records of performance of Northern states, Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum, recently admitted that most of the school leavers in his state are of poor quality and cannot gain admission to universities. He also said those that managed to get admission struggle to cope.  That majority of the over 13million out of school children in Nigeria are domiciled in the north is no longer news. Although, the governors have been working towards reducing the number of child beggars in their states, which is a welcome development.

This notwithstanding, the problem of consistent poor performance of Northern states in external examinations deserves urgent attention. I am looking forward to a time when northern states’ governors will hold emergency meetings on this with a view to reversing the trend. That to me would be a better use of their time than meeting to endorse social media censorship.  Rather than summoning an emergency meeting and wasting precious time to condemn peaceful and legitimate protests by youths seeking better treatment from their country’s policemen, it’s high time our Northern governors  spared a thought for these poor performing students in their region.

They should gather together and give themselves deadline and timeline on how to fix the education sector to save the region from its present backwardness.  This is an urgent assignment. If the governors are able to get this right, they would have solved the problems of banditry, insurgency, kidnapping and all those things militating against the development of the north. As it is, the north is dragging the rest of the country backward. Northern governors should be more proactive in reversing this dangerous trend. Let the north apply the same dexterity with which it handles political issues to solving the poor educational standard in the region.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not in any way inferring that education standards are perfect in other parts of Nigeria. All I am saying is that since the North is strong as a region and its governors are always united when it comes to national issues, they should extend the same unifying strength to solve the problems in their education sector. As it is, the north appears to be moving at a snail speed while other parts of the country seem to be running like a cheetah education-wise.  So, the region needs to buckle down to these problems.

A good way to start is for the governors to agree that children from the region would be groomed to compete with their counterparts for placement in educational institutions across the country. All this idea of a candidate from one state scoring 10 marks to gain admission to unity schools when others have to score 200 to get same admission, has to stop.  The governors need to commit to providing quality education to children from the region as if quota system policy no longer exists.   Their children must be taught to work hard and compete for slots not expecting such to fall on their laps because they are from a particular region of the country.

This to me is the emergency meeting that our northern states governors should be holding.  They should work on rescuing the region’s education sector from total collapse. Let them constitute think tanks that can help them proffer solutions to their challenges.  If Nigeria truly belongs to all of us, we should be interested in its even development.  This idea of the North always antagonising the south will not take the region far.  Until we see problems for what they are and treat them as such, the country will continue to sink. If education is truly the bedrock of development, the north should stop treating it with levity. The greatest investment anyone can make in our youth is investment in their education.

Olabisi Deji-Folutile is the editor-in-chief, franktalknow.com and member, Nigerian Guild of Editors. Email: bisideji@yahoo.co.uk