Dr. (Mrs.) Omenogo Veronica Mejabi, now the Head of the recently established Department of Information and Communication Science of the University of Ilorin, was the pioneer Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences in the institution. She gives insight into the issue of high failure rate in secondary school certificate examinations among others.

EVERY now and then whenever the results of public examinations such as those conducted by West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the National Examination Council (NECO) and even Joint Matriculation Examination (JME) are released in Nigeria; the number of candidates that failed usually heralds the news. This is because of the incidence of high failure rate.

As is often the case, various education stakeholders begin to adduce different reasons for the flop. Notwithstanding this, Dr. (Mrs.) Omenogo Veronica Mejabi, the foundation Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Ilorin has a remarkably distinctive viewpoint on the vexed issue borne out of the belief that once the foundation is faulty, a lot of difficulties would definitely be encountered.

"When you talk about the WAEC, it is an exam that West African countries take part in including Nigeria. Their secondary school students undertake the exam. My objection would be if that were so, why did we have the need to setup another exam body? Perhaps, our performance was declining and instead of correcting it, we were kind of looking for another way out. But now, performance even at NECO seems to be even a bit worse going by the results coming out. The WAEC results come out and each time, they tell us that those who obtained five credits including English and Mathematics are a very small proportion of the people that took the exams. My belief is that it boils down to what you have- teachers and students."

For Dr. Mejabi, creating another examination body is not the solution because students from other African countries equally sit for WAEC. "Therefore, if their pass rate is okay why should our own not be okay?" she asks.  "Definitely, we need to correct the way we are preparing the students for those exams."

As a lecturer in the University, she believes strongly that there is a lot of room for improvement in the Nigerian educational system as a whole. "I believe that the area of focus has to be at the primary school level because that is the formative years of a child."

While commenting that many habits are already formed by the time the child is moving out from primary school, she draws from her early educational experience. "I recall the way I was trained as well; I think the focus has to be on English and Arithmetic. The very basics, so that by the time a child is finishing primary school, he or she can write letters, he can read a passage and comprehend and answer questions based on that passage.

"When you have a very good and committed teacher, you are frustrating that teacher when you want him or her to teach English or Mathematics to a class size that is more than 40."

Pointing out ways by which students can improve on their English or Mathematics is through doing homework, which then requires the teacher to grade, Dr. Mejabi notes that once a class size becomes large, it is not possible for the teacher to give those weekly assignments. "In fact, when we were in school, it was every day. Every day you had English and Arithmetic homework; that is apart from any other thing happening with the remaining subjects."

In addition, "the child should know some idioms and one thing that I see is missing from many primary schools today is rhymes. Children learn a lot from those rhymes, singing and poetry from primary school. So English and Arithmetic- by the time a child is finishing primary school, the basics for adding, subtracting, multiplication, division, there should be no doubt in any secondary-school-entry child of how to do those things. They should have done it so many times that it should be part of them.

"I am using arithmetic rather than mathematics because it is what covers, for example, what you need to buy and sell, multiply and all that. Therefore, you don't really need to go into so much of the complexities of mathematics but let somebody who finishes from primary school be able to function in the society in terms of commerce, and be able to communicate in English, which is the official language for communication in Nigeria.

"Once weaknesses in English language are there, coming from a primary school, it is very difficult to correct. Spellings for example, are things that are already part of a person. What a person has learnt and has learnt to spell it the wrong way, it becomes very difficult to unlearn the wrong things one has learnt. And if one has written for such a long time without punctuations, it is very problematic and in order to correct that problem of punctuation, the teacher has to grade and when the class size is too large the teacher just gets frustrated and really cannot keep up," she explains.

Speaking as an educator she is, the academician says the first place of learning English is A for Apple. "So are you going to start doing that at secondary school level?" she inquires rhetorically. ‘If you have an illiterate coming from primary school into secondary school, I don't know what magic you can do as a teacher because you know you must build on something. Whereas, half of the class is already lost before you even start, you have already set up yourself to fail.

"I think the cycle the government needs to look closely is the primary school. And the goal should be any person who has finished primary school just like in the days of old when somebody in standard six, what the person could deliver, most of our secondary school graduates now cannot; the aim should be among other things, he or she can write letters, prepare curriculum vitae, able to do comprehension. Then for the secondary schools, I think the inspectors need to be on top of their business. They need to have the courage to honestly report when they go to schools where not much teaching is going on," she says.

The academician admits though that the foundation may be difficult to repair just as she identifies population explosion in many public schools as well as the take-over of such schools from the missionaries by the government as a fundamental problem.

‘I attended a school where the principal knew the name of every student. Therefore, you can imagine the discipline when your principal sees you at a distance and just by seeing only your back, the principal calls out to you by name. Now, when you now have population explosion in these schools, you definitely lose discipline because the teachers don't even know their students."

Dr. Mejabi disclosed that since the minimum qualification for a schoolteacher in a secondary school is an NCE, then the teachers are prepared enough to give the content. "It may not be so high quality but if the teachers do their work, and the class sizes are reduced so that the teachers can handle grading assignment, I am sure that in the long run, the grades will only improve."

Drawing attention to the fact that government seems to be allowing more freedom for private sector investment in education right from university level to secondary and primary schools, Dr. Mejabi says because it is a private concern, it means access is only for those that can afford it.

"One thing you must know is that Nigerian families sacrifice a lot to get their children educated so I wouldn't say when you find a child in any of these private schools, the conclusion is that the child comes from a privileged background. It is possible that the parents of that child have not brought a new vehicle for 20 to 30 years because they would rather spend that money in giving their child good education. Communities are prepared to contribute to have a star from their midst but then access will be a problem because there will be no equality for all because the private institutions is all about the economics," she explains.

Dr. Mejabi, now Head of the recently established Department of Information and Communication Science of the University of Ilorin, was the pioneer Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences in the institution. She says of the challenges she encountered in the course of her responsibilities.  "The way I approach it has been consistent. Being fair, because once you are fair, it will be difficult to be in a position where you are now doubting how to respond to a situation or a decision making process. I think I am patient but people think I am not. Maybe because my patience is tied to the number of times, either I have pointed out a correction or I have made my feeling known about something. Once I have done it maybe twice or thrice, I then tend not to excuse a repetition. So, I think meeting the challenges is more of trying to have a pattern of fair play," She says with a smile.

Born 23rd May 1960, Dr. Mejabi (nee Obonyano) attended Iden Girls' Grammar School (now St. Maria Goretti Girls' Secondary School), Benin-City from 1971-1975, Idia College, Benin City from 1975-1977. She also attended the Institute of Continuing Education, Benin City from 1977-1978.

She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Ibadan in 1981, a Postgraduate Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the University of Aston, in Birmingham, and a Masters degree in Process Analysis and Development from the same institution. She obtained her Ph.D in Management Science from the University of Ilorin in March 2007. She is married to Ekundayo Mejabi, an animal scientist by training and the union is blessed with three children- Ayomide, Moriyike and Oluwadurotimi Mejabi.