Sanusi tasks northern governors on trained teachers

Citing the adverse effect of poor quality of teaching, particularly in Northern public secondary schools, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has advocated the recruitment of qualified teachers to check the series failure of students in national examinations.

Sanusi who lamented the recurrent poor performance of candidates sitting for the National Examination Council (NECO) blamed Northern state governments for the shortage of trained teachers in public schools.

The emir, while receiving the delegates from NECO insisted that the performance of students in any examination could only be measured on credibility and efficiency of teachers. Although NECO announced results of 2015 November/December with 68 per cent of candidates scoring a minimum of five credits, including Mathematics and English Language, an improved performance as against previous result, an aggregate percentage of students from the Northern part of the country indicate a sharp decline.

Counting on the credibility of NECO, Sanusi charged the registrar to bring to bear his professional prowess in improving the quality of the national examination.

The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of NECO, Prof. Abdulrasheed Garba, intimated plans to introduce Computer-Based Test (CBT) as part of strategic measures to improve the system, adding that already the council has concluded plans to send some of its technical staff abroad for capacity building.

The registrar hinted that NECO has extended its conduct of examination to neighbouring West African countries, and added that part of NECO’s mandate include widening its tentacles beyond the five traditional examinations. Similarly, the Vice chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, Prof. Muhammad Yahuza Bello, urged the management of NECO to consider the knowledge disadvantage of students in computer application before the commencement of its Computer-Based Test examination.

Bello made the assertion when the management team of NECO paid a similar visit to the university. He explained that NECO needed to evaluate the percentage of candidates particular from the rural areas who may not be exposed to computer knowledge before such test. Bello also tasked NECO to rather focus on computer-based marking scheme and charged it to consolidate on improving performance in the conduct of the examinations.
He expressed confidence that the appointment of the Garba would add more value to the standard of the national examines.