In the last two weeks, Osun State has become a subject of discussion on the account of the recently released West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination ( WASSCE) result which indicates that 32.6% of the public school students which sat for the exam in 2021 received matriculable credit passes. Many even claim WAEC ranked the state as number 36 in the whole of Nigeria. Whereas WAEC has debunked the lie that it carried out ranking on performance of states… because it is not part of its duties as Council, many opinion moulders and commentators continue to run with the negative story for political mischief aimed at projecting the education policy of the state government as ineffective and warped. Whether WAEC has truly ranked the state as number 36 or not, what is not in dispute is that the 2021 result is not a befitting feat for the state and there is a need for the state government to be more painstaking to its Performance Evaluation and Review Techniques ( PERT) in the education sector. However, it is important to accentuate the fact that the Mean Percentage of performance of the Oyetola Administration in WASSCE, 29.18%, is better than 29.0% of the immediate past administration or 11.5% of the PDP administration.
The PDP government of 2003-2010 was trademarked for disaster in the WAEC examination. Its best result was in 2010 when 36,439 of the entire 43,216 students that sat for the exam failed to obtain the needed matriculable passes. In fact in 2007, almost all the students that sat for the exam in Osun failed. Only 2,483 of the 36,171 students that sat for WAEC exam in the state obtained matriculable credit passes.
Meanwhile, in 2015, after being in the saddle for about 5 years, and after committing over =N=30 billion in education sector, the Rauf Aregbesola Adminstration could only achieve an average 20.5% performance in the senior school certification examination. The government’s best performance at the time was 22.24%. It was that woeful!
Unless the harsh environment in which the current government has been forced to operate is situated and explained, one might not understand the appreciable effort that went into achieving the 32.6% mark that is now a discussion driven and sustained by detractors to gain political traction.
Without mincing words, the current government inherited a nearly collapsed education sector. The public school was clumsy. Quality teachers were inadequate. And where quality teachers were found, the morale was at its lowest ebb, thus teachers could not give their best. From 2015 to 2018 when the government experimented with the half-salary regime, the teachers in Osun State public schools were the most traumatised because when they were on the streets literally begging for what to eat, the government of that time was busy institutionalising white elephant projects. The situation was made worse with the lack of instructional materials that was prevalent in schools. The touted Opon Imo project was driven more by impulses for self-glorification than for sustainable public gain it was projected to serve. Investigation revealed none of the devices was handed to the current government. And when visitations were made to a warehouse where the devices were said to have been kept, the number available was barely 5,000 and were badly damaged, many damaged beyond repair. Recall the government repeatedly claimed no fewer than 40,000 tablets were procured for the use of secondary school students in the state. However, no information is available to ascertain number procured because relevant files relating to the project, like many projects of the defunct administration, were carted away by men who held sway at that period. Everything was more of noise than substance. No serious teaching but show-off. But the government, after all, was interested in its rating in the standardised exams by WAEC and NECO. So to shore up the image of the government, many of the school administrators became ready tools for examination malpractice. The state had been so much engrossed in this underhand practice that in 2019, when a new government was settling down to work, the state came under a heavy hammer of the examination body. Of the 318 schools that hosted WAEC in the year, 266 of them were indicted for malpractice! 111 of the schools were later banned for two years, while the remaining 155 were reprimanded. This was the education sector bequeathed to the Oyetola Administration.
In October 2019 when Governor Adegboyega Oyetola appointed Hon. Folorunso Bamisayemi as Commissioner for Education, he charged him to cure all the factors responsible for exam malpractice in our schools and run a sector entrenched in Omoluabi ethos and values. And since then, that has been the preoccupation of the Ministry of Education he superintends.
The Ministry now encourages Tutors-General and Inspectorate Departments with financial assistance to enhance their operation — for effective supervision of schools. The Ministry, in the last three years, has also facilitated payments of grants to school. The teacher’s recruitment, which began in 2020 but was stalled by the COVID-19, was completed and the first batch of 1,000 teachers, mostly science teachers, resumed classes in February 2022. The process for final recruitment of another 1,500 teachers is in the pipeline. The Ministry of Education, which was without a bicycle let alone a vehicle as at the period the current Administration came on board, is now a proud owner of 7 jack trucks for its operation. The government, through the ministry, has also invested heavily in equipping the science laboratories in public schools. The hitherto redundant Local Education Inspectors in local government areas are now active and alive to their supervisory roles.
Again, the Zero-tolerance policy for cheating and examination malpractice of the state government has begun to yield fruit. In the 2021 WASSCE, only one public school was indicted for cheating. This is a significant improvement coming from a background where 266 schools were recently scandalised for engaging in malpractice.
Even though there have been deliberate attempts by some largely fickle political characters to misinform the innocent public as to effort of the Oyetola government in the education sector, the fact is that thunderous outbursts, according to German literary agent and publisher Keith Thompson, are no substitute for superior knowledge. The 2021 performance may not be an appropriate and fair yardstick to evaluate the effort of the current government having regard that the students who sat for the exam were already on their way out of the system when the current government came on board, hence its reform could not have had much impact on them to earn it the malicious criticism its traducers currently hurl at it. But the leap in performance of the candidates in WASSCE from 4.78% in 2020 to 32.6% in 2021 is reassuring and an indication that the future is bright if the reforms are guided jealously. The extant education policy is a work-in-progress, and with more effort and cooperation of citizens and stakeholders, the desired results would begin to reflect in no distant time.
