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Due to increased public outcry against the
declining performance in public examinations and the high incidence of
examination malpractices, the federal government said it is now ready
to revamp the examination sub-sector.

Ruqquayatu Rufa’I, the Minister of Education, said plans are underway to review the examination policy in Nigeria.

Speaking yesterday at the National
Examination Summit held in Abuja, the minister said the new arrangement
would be for students to register for subjects that will help them gain
admission into tertiary institutions.

“The policy on registration for
examination will be reviewed to allow candidates to have the option to
register for only the subjects they need to qualify for admission,”
Mrs. Rufa’I said.

“The appalling performance by students
is not without causes, which apparently include gaps in the curriculum,
poor teaching methods, non availability of syllabuses in some schools,
government policies on compulsory registration for all subjects by
candidates who require just one or two subjects to qualify for
admission,” she said.

Mrs. Rufai therefore, directed the
Education Trust Fund as a matter of urgency, to liaise with the
Nigerian Education Research and Development Council, West African
Examination Council, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, and the
National Examination Council to produce copies of national syllabus and
the school curriculum and pass to primary and secondary schools
nationwide.

This, she said, is necessary as the
unfolding worrisome scenario in the examination sub-sector calls for
urgent attention in order to revamp the sub-sector and reduce the high
failure rate recorded in public examination.

She added that “the poor results of
candidates announced by NECO recently whereby only 1.75 percent of the
candidates that sat for the November/December Senior Secondary School
Certificate private examinations in 2009 had five credits and above,
while in the June/ July SSCE school examinations for the same year only
10.53 percent of the students also had five credits and above,
including English and Mathematics, were obviously symptomatic of an
ailing education sector, which requires urgent intellectual diagnosis
by education experts and valuable solution.”

Pai Obanya, an international education strategist, in his remark at
the summit, said another way out of the ruts is to make curriculum
development participatory; as well as explore online examination
option. He also stated that government should start to invest in
education.