With Joke Adeniyi-Jackson
Few days ago, I counted and along the line, lost count of the number of tutorial and coaching centres for JAMB, WAEC, NECO and A Levels on the stretch of Sawmill road in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. This is a pointer to the fact that there is preponderance of such centres within the metropolis. This development is not unconnected with the fact that investment in the education sector is lucrative. Many people in recent time depend on it as their major means of livelihood. You can never run out of business because candidates write examinations all year round. It is well known fact that the population of people seeking education continue to increase yearly; this also accounts for the growing number of candidates applying for JAMB since it was made a criterion for gaining admission into Nigerian Universities. Owing to the high cut-off marks by individual universities the examination has become very competitive and candidates desperate to pass, hence the proliferation of coaching centres. Unfortunately, most of the existing coaching centres in Ilorin are located in environments which are not conducive for teaching and learning. Uncompleted building, room apartments and halls among others are used by operators for this purpose. It was also observed that much learning is not taking place in most of these centres, rather the candidates take it as an avenue for socialising with friends. Surprisingly, many of the centres now operate a boarding system for the candidates, most of whom travel down from parts of the country for the coaching session. Also, most of the operators do not employed highly qualified teachers in order to cut cost. The operators see the tutorial centres as business with aim of making maximum profit and this can only be realised with the registration of more candidates. Though, the main purpose of tutorial centres is to prepare candidates adequately for examinations, but recent developments have brought the mode of operations of some of these establishments into question. Some of them aid and abet malpractices; cutting corners to achieve excellence, so as to woo customers. This explains why candidates patronise centres where greater numbers of the candidates pass examination with good results. In this case, the end justifies the means. The operators cash in on the desperation of parents to make their children pass to demand huge sum of money for registration with assurance of the candidates making good grades. However, there are widespread allegations that some of these centres collude with officials of examination bodies to get good results for their candidates. Sadly, the minds of most students and parents have been tuned to believing that the only way to pass external examinations and get admission into tertiary institutions is to enroll in coaching centres. Some parents even pull out their children who are in final classes from formal school setting and get them into coaching centres in preparation for JAMB, WAEC, NECO, A Levels etcetera. In some of such centres candidates are given past examination papers to study with the hope that the questions will be repeated. The demerit of this is that it produces narrow minded, non creative people who cannot brace up to the competitions in the real world with others who are driven by their own thoughts and determination to excel and who thrive on creativity and individuality . There is no doubt that most of these coaching/ tutorial centres are producing half baked students for tertiary institutions.
The solution to these problem is three-pronged; role of government, school and parents. To arrest the situation, it behooves the state government to regulate and come up with frame guidelines to check the illegal springing up of coaching centres. Regulation of coaching/tutorial centres is pertinent for them to achieve the principal purpose of properly preparing students for public examinations.
Additionally, relevant authorities must monitor activities of operators. Most importantly, the authorities must ensure that all school teachers show high level of commitment to their responsibilities. The teacher must realise that they are failures when their students fail examinations. Incontrovertibly, the standard of education in Nigeria is falling, therefore the state government must be seen to do all within its capacity to save the situation in the state by revamping the education sector. Teachers must be well motivated to bring out the best in them.
On their part, parents should give more time to their children to complement the teachers’ efforts. They must monitor their children’s academic performance and not yield to pressure to make them pass examinations by hook or crook. They need to stop having unrealistic expectations from their children. It is disheartening that students no longer take their studies seriously. There are so many distractions, which compete with their studies such as the social media, television games movies, parties, among others.
As observed by an education expert, education needs teaching, not coaching. There is urgent need to tame the coaching centre culture in the interest of all-round academic development of Kwara students.
