Poor Performance in Senior School Certificate Examination

Standards are set in public examinations on the expected conduct of candidates and invigilators/supervisors during an examination. Standards are also set on the performance of candidates if they are to be certified and declared as having passed such examination. For instance, in the Senior School Certificate Examination, the standard expected of candidates to be certificated is five credit passes inclusive of English Language and Mathematics which are general subjects in the secondary school system.

Poor performance, which Ojerinde (2005) identified as a major challenge of public examining in Nigeria, occurs when a large number of the candidates perform below the set standards in any examination. Poor performance is different from examination malpractice.

Examination malpractice occurs when candidates, supervisors or any other unconcerned persons or group of persons engage in activities that disrupts the smooth conduct of an examination. Examination malpractice is a major cause of poor performance in Senior School Certificate Examination in Nigeria (Uduh, 2010).

From the background of this study, it has been established that the performance of candidates in Senior School Certificate Examination in Nigeria is really poor. Hence, Uduh (2010) attribute poor performance in this examination to candidates‟ inadequate preparation, poor coverage of the syllabus, failure to adhere to rubrics, lack of understanding of the demands of the questions, illegible handwriting, poor spelling of basic words, and test anxiety among others.

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Ola-Gbadamosi (2009) considered the Government, the teachers and the learners as human and curriculum factors that could affect performance in public examinations.

According to him, Government has the duty of establishing and maintaining standards in schools. The teachers are the pivots and standard custodians and bearers in the schools while the students are to follow teachers‟ standard (positive ones) to achieve the goals of establishing schools. Ola-Gbadamosi also pointed out that curriculum objectives, curriculum contents, planning, development and organization, instructional materials, instructional methods, quality of learning (student variables) and government/schools variables are the overall curriculum factors that affect candidates‟ performance in public examinations.

Other researchers like Adelakun and Adewale (2011) and Addae-Mensa (2006) have considered examiner and assessment quality as factors that could affect candidates‟

performance in public examinations. In separate studies in Nigeria and Ghana respectively, they reported that older and more matured examiners were more careful in assessment of candidates than the budding examiners.

Also, the WAEC Chief Examiners Report (2004, 2005 and 2007) notes that poor coverage of the syllabus, poor usage of the English language, non-expantiation of points, non-adherence to rubrics and instructions and so on are core factors that affect candidates‟

performance in Senior School Certificate Examination in Nigeria. Although, various factors affect candidates‟ performance in various subjects, if these central factors are tackled by all the parties in the system (teachers and learners in particular) there is no doubt that candidates‟

performance in Nigeria will definitely improve.

Furthermore, Alabi (2000) found the following factors to be responsible for poor performance amongst Senior Secondary School Students:

(i) Poor teaching i.e. Senior Secondary School teachers do not devote enough time to teaching. They skip classes always without explanation.

(ii) Large class size i.e. many teachers had to contend with overcrowded classes. This affects their efficiency and the attention students individually get from them.

(iii) Lack of parental supervision and encouragement at home i.e. many parents do not bother to find out what their children learn in school not to talk of finding out whether they even get to school when they leave house. Alabi is of the view that if parents supervise and show interest in their children‟s homework and assignment, the

41 performance in school will surely improve.

(iv) Students‟ reliance on all forms of assistance “Expo” to pass examinations. This is examination malpractice, which have been identified by Uduh (2010) and Ojerinde (2005) as a major challenge of public examining in Nigeria today.

(v) Indolence and poor study habits on the part of students.

(vi) Teacher dominated classroom instructional activities among other factors.

Alabi recommended that teachers should acquaint themselves with contemporary approaches to teaching by attending remedial programmes, seminars, symposium etc. He advised students to cultivate good study habits and not rely on assistance during examination and parents should provide academic materials due to them and regularly check the exercise books of their children to find out what they are doing in school, while government should employ only specialist teachers for the various subjects offered in the secondary school system. To improve candidates‟ performance in the Senior School Certificate Examination in Nigeria, Uwadiae (2007:14-17) advices

a) Students to:

-positively change their attitude to learning;

-show equal interest in all the subjects they registered for;

-prepare adequately for their examinations;

-exhibit excellent treatment of questions to produce good response through effective communication and command of the English Language.

b) Teachers to:

-be more enduringly committed to their profession;

-diagnose their students‟ weaknesses with the aim of eliminating them through stimulating teaching strategies;

-do some counselling alongside their primary teaching assignment;

-recognise the differences among students and seek to meet their individual needs;

-endeavour to participate in WAEC coordination and marking sessions to enable them have more experience in standard evaluation and assessment procedures.

c) Assessors to:

-maintain the quality of its assessment tools;

-devise means of eliminating all forms of examination malpractice;

-sustain the existing comparability of the grades awarded…;

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-maintain the non-gender biased setting of objective items and essay questions in its papers;

-investigate thoroughly all cases of candidates who seek redress as some of them claimed they were impersonated.

d) Other Stakeholders in Education:

-Government should provide the wherewithal for meaningful teaching to take place, including adequate remuneration of teachers, conducive learning environment, and sponsorship of teachers‟ attendance at professional workshops, seminars and conferences and improved funding for education.

-Inspectors of education should be more alive to their duty of ensuring effective monitoring of schools.

-The Ministries of Education should introduce and monitor quality control measures in the administration and scoring of Continuous Assessment.

-Government at all levels should create more awareness of the importance of vocational and technical subjects and provide incentives for technical school graduates in terms of job placement and admission into tertiary institutions.

-Parents and guardians should strive to provide the basic needs of their wards to enable them attain the threshold of motivation needed to bring about significant improvement in their academic performance.

2.9 Continuous Assessment in Senior Secondary Schools