Wrong Career 'Choice Catalyst' For Mass Failure

As part of modalities to check-mate the spate of examination failure especially in NECO, WAEC and JAMB, forced careers made by parents on their children has been identified as a major root cause.


This was disclosed by the chief executive secretary of NABTEB, Dr Olatunde Aworanti during his presentation at the national examination summit held in Abuja. He said the attitude of many parents has not helped the education sector in terms of quality results.

He accused parents of forcing their children to read professional courses like medicine, architecture, engineering and law among several others without taking into cognizance the abilities and level of assimilation of the children which he said poses as detriment to the child.

He advised parents to allow their children to choose courses of their choice and the subject combination to facilitate such, saying that with hard work, dedication and perseverance, each child can make it to the top if given the opportunity.

He said that already, there has been a misconception of technical schools which has also grossly affected the performance of many as many see it as a second option or last resort, saying that in a subject like motor vehicle mechanical works, statistics showed that in 2006, 63.4% failed. While 56.6%, 37.1%, 85.5% and 81.4% failed in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively.

He posited that other factors responsible for examination failure include: inadequate coverage of syllabus and non-familiarisation with test format foundation factors, poor reading culture, wrong subject combination, and lack of knowledge of common pitfalls.

Others which were further sub-divided are institutional, environmental/structural, societal, psycho-social, home/parental, as well as teacher and student factors.