Abba Muhammad Taufiq
In a wider perspective, the anguish that afflicts the flock of young Nigerian boys and girls taking their course of academia right from the kindergartens to senior secondary schools and bearing towards the direction of varsities is not exclusively Jamb. Jamb on one hand flares up the furnace while other external Exams including WAEC, NECO and in some institutions Post Jamb on the other hand constrict the nerves to spark more troubles thus shutting their right of entry into the Universities and hamper the accomplishment of their desired goals.
The appalling tragedy and tribulations of external Exams may betide even the best of us, this an indisputable reality. Now and then, we have avouched a chain of events in our own respective classes, schools, and environment where industrious students that are very sound in the brainbox line being ensnared in the misery of either JAMB or WAEC/NECO, and this doesn’t make them bad in whichsoever way.
It is essential at this juncture to bring those factors that blunt our academic rigour into consideration.
Firstly, We can’t deny the facts that JAMB, WAEC and other external exams are no match to our terminal schools exams in terms of their knottiness and vagueness. By steeringthe wheels of our journey back to yesterday, I can say we were once being entangled by the uncertainties of whether we could be able to make our ways through universities by passing those exams. What is truly lacked is not really firmness of determination and purpose from within us but the frailty of if not all most of our teachers to meet their constitutional responsibilities in conveying all the de rigueur and requisites in preparing students for external examination.
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Secondly, we may not be passing fair by unleashing our displeasure and academic turmoil on the inability of our poor teachers in expanding the academic performances. To some certain degree, our teachers render the best of them in making the best out of their students. However, students being unduly engrossed in thoughtless and reckless activities including but not exclusive to Internet and Social media avidity, squandering most of the time on unethical movies that only buttresses moral bankruptcy are also proclivious for either a pyrrhic victory or deadly failure.
Thirdly, the detrimental concern given to our education by our courageous leaders in whose midst are mostly people that had savoured its fullest glee is perturbing and worth weeping for. Antiquity has truly narrated to us the tales of how intelligent Nigerian elites and most of its brave leaders were educated free of scot. Interestingly, this is the profit that elevates them to the apogee of their current public statures and political power but unfortunately the end result that requited our current educational system with poor infrastructures, poor academic facilities to promote a well conducive learning atmosphere, meager amount that is not sufficient enough to purchase a bag of rice in our todays Nigeria to motivate and cater for our teachers not to talk of other needs. With these, no nation can ever have a standardized educational body with the backbone of giving or rather preparing its children with sound knowledge to confront whatsoever examination.
Last but not the least, I will wish to scratch the parental share in this. Definitely I know this may be a bitter pill to swallow but it behoves parents to know that excessive love can be as damaging as the lack of it. It is a no criminal offence buying mobile phones for our children but it must be ensured that the phones are being used in the best ways. Owing to the functional physiological and anatomical changes in the transition of one to adulthood at precisely the “adolescence” is characterized by series scenarios. Children at this stage are so vulnerable to moral insecurities and dangers that the need of external forces to control everything they do becomes mandatory. As such, a strong regulatory body at our homes or schools shall always be there to ensure that children do not transgress the positive values of phones. One more question to close this column, do our parents today try to inquire about what we study in the day time at schools and ask us burn our candles in the dead of the night by reading more?
I will love to extend my exhortations to those who did not attain the required Jamb grade that delay is never a denial and failure is not fatal. Pick and dust yourself off. Remain objective by keeping your hopes alive, aiming higher and dreaming even bigger for it takes courage and determination to reach the new dawn. For those that succeeded, may God in His infinite mercy deliver you all from the shackles and unclear tricks of WAEC, NECO and Post Jamb.
May Allah brighten your Path. Amen
–Abba Muhammad Tawfiq.
Medical Rehabilitation student University Of Maiduguri.
Writes From Yola
