The policy that gives undue advantage to some states at the expense of others in the admission of young Nigerians to Unity Schools across the country has again come into scrutiny following the release of the cut-off marks by the National Examination Council. MAYOWA SAMUEL reports that experts blame poor leadership on the quota system and that the so-called disadvantaged states are drawing other states backwards.
The decades-long controversy regarding the huge disparity between the cut-off marks for students in the North and their counterparts in the South for admission into schools in Nigeria has resurfaced.
This follows the Federal Government’s recent pegging of cut-off marks for admission into the 104 Unity Schools across the country at an average of 134 for the five South-East states while pegging the cut-off scores for students in the North at 20 marks and below for the 2020/2021 academic year.
According to a breakdown of the latest pegging released earlier in July by the National Examination Council (NECO), under the Federal Ministry of Education, out of a total of 300 marks, the highest cut-off mark of 139 went to Anambra, Imo 138, Enugu 134, Lagos 133, Delta 131, Ogun 131, Abia 130 and Edo while from the South -West, Osun and Oyo both have a cut-off mark of 127.
The lowest cut-off marks to secure admission into unity school was given to the North in the excuse of being an educationally disadvantaged region.
Gombe has a cut-off mark of 58, Nasarawa 58, Borno 45, Jigawa 44 and Bauchi 35.
In the same vein, a case of gender discrimination regarding cut-off marks in few schools in northern states has also been a recurring but overlooked development. This has aggressively affected the girl child education in the region. This is evident in Kebbi where the cut-off mark for males was put at 9 while that of females was put at 20; Taraba has 3 marks for males and 11 marks for females while in Yobe, males have to score just 2 marks but females need to score 27 marks.
Known as the quota system which is meant to encourage the educationally disadvantaged state in the Northern part of the country, experts are unrelenting in lambasting the policy. They claim the policy was promulgated to favour the region at the detriment of other states outside the region. Describing the system as promoting mediocrity and encouraging laziness, experts said it has been extended to the running of affairs of the country.
Chairman, BOT at International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Emeka Umeagbalasi is of the view that the disparity and ultimately the quota system is part of the structural destruction inherent in the country which shouldn’t be, considering the level of enlightenment in the world, and the easy access to educational tools with the help of information technology.
“Today, if you want to conduct any research, you can do that once you have data. In a twinkle of an eye, you have downloaded information about certain developments anywhere in the world but it is so unfortunate that when all these things are available; the Nigerian government keeps bringing the country backward. The essence of education is for the purpose of training captains of industries and leaders of tomorrow to drive the wheels of development.
“If a student school library is well-equipped, has access to the internet, why can’t the student do well? Even if such a student is transferred from the north to the South, the student will still do well. If you are unable to prepare enough grounds for students and you continuously degrade them, bastardise their education and thinking, are you doing them any good? You are not doing them any good. They are forcing students in the south to work harder while somebody is required to score 20 marks in the north, how do you expect such a person to read?” Umeagbalasi noted.
“Somebody who is brilliant will be brilliant; somebody who has a dull brain will have a dull brain. The government is killing the quality of education and the future of those children. It’s a matter of laying the right foundation for them by employing the right teachers and providing them facilities”
Insisting that the system is targeted at encouraging mediocrity in the education sector, he downplayed the pathetic excuse of the tag “disadvantaged states”, saying it has no meaning in education.
He said: “you have some people who are from the North who graduated from the best schools in the world. Are you telling me that a northerner that attended University of Glasgow, Harvard University or George Washington University, was given the admission using this quota system?
“The answer is no. Somebody who is brilliant will be brilliant; somebody who has a dull brain will have a dull brain. The government is killing the quality of education and the future of those children. It’s a matter of laying the right foundation for them by employing the right teachers and providing them facilities,” he further added.
In another opinion, a Dean of Studies at Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Dr Okedeyi, in his own submission describes as unfortunate the situation where some schools in some northern states admit students at all costs by admitting people that score as low as 10 and below while students in the south that score as high as 180 are denied admission.
Okedeyi attributed the garbage in garbage out leadership in the country to the practice of this system in the education sector. He said “You give admission to a student that scores 2 out of 300 marks, package him to cross through the secondary education level and he still crosses the university, at the end of the day, such students will be employed to the most lucrative parastatals in the country, simply because he is from a northern state and this is what is bringing our education down. A student that was admitted with such a very low mark, finds his way into the university, what miracle do you expect the lecturer or the university system to do to bring such a student up?”
To address the inequality, the educationist preferred a return to a regional system of government where each region controls its educational policy. In his explanation, he said:
“Between 1960 and 1966 when we were operating a regional government, although the north is backward in education, they were moving at their own pace. If they had sustained that regional system of government, by now, they would have caught up with other regions in terms of education, but because they have the power, that’s why we are where we are. Let each region grow with its own potential. The National Assembly with their constitution review should do a proper restructuring which doesn’t mean that we have to break up.”
Furthermore, he wondered if the universities in the country have the capacity to admit the meagre 14 percent of JAMB applicants who passed the exam while adding that “the result from the north is understandable. How many of them are in school? The Almajeri are there, while those who are going to school are being kidnapped every day, so how do you expect them to perform? How do you expect education to thrive in that region?”
