2014 WAEC: Our students’ failure is our nation’s failure —Atiku

2014 WAEC: Our students’ failure is our nation’s failure —Atiku

FORMER Vice President, Atiku Abubakar,
yesterday, attributed mass failure recorded by
Nigerian students in the May/June 2014 West
African Examinations Council to the non-chalant
attitude of government to education from primary to
university level.
He described failure of the students as the nation’s
failure.
According to him, the failure of the students is no
surprise to anyone, in view of the series of strikes
suffered by the school system in the country.
LECTURE: From left; Former Vice President Atiku
Abubakar, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos
State and Chief Timipre Sylva at the 50th birthday
lecture in honour of the former Bayelsa State
Governor at Sheraton Hotel, Abuja yesterday.
Atiku in a statement personally signed and made
available to journalists in Abuja, said: “The West
Africa Examination Council, WAEC, has just released
the results of the May/June 2014 Senior School
Certificate Examination. As was the case last year,
mass failure was recorded by Nigerian students.
“Only 31.28 per cent of the students who sat for the
2014 exam obtained credits in five subjects and
above, including Mathematics and English
Language.
“No one who has been observing the ongoing
attitude towards education in Nigeria will be
surprised by this. In the past year alone, industrial
action by teachers have dominated the news
headlines. Primary school teachers in Benue State,
for example, embarked on an eight-month strike to
demand better conditions and allowances.
“Teachers all over Nigeria remain poorly paid, with
several jokes being peddled about how parents are
reluctant to allow their daughters marry teachers.
“In addition to poor welfare, teachers in the
Northeast of Nigeria face a peculiar challenge not
common to their colleagues in other parts of the
country.
The National Union of Teachers, NUT, reports that
the organisation has so far lost about 173 of their
members to Boko Haram terrorist attacks.
“Sadly, with the Nigerian government not yet able to
adequately protect citizens from these random
attacks, that number could easily increase.
“There is also the issue of competence of Nigerian
teachers. Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State
recently lost his seat in a re-election bid with poll
results that sent shock waves across the nation,
notwithstanding his well-publicised record of high
performance.
“One of the reasons political analysts have given for
his rejection by Ekiti people was his attempt to
improve the quality of teachers in the state by
putting them through competency tests. “Teachers
in Kwara and Edo states also resisted similar
tests.”