Ven though Nigerians, especially the old generation species have become used to seeing the nation’s education sector as a failing segment of governance, the occurrences in that area got really worse this year. It began with the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB. On the 9th of May, the body released the results of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME taken in April, 2025 by about 1,955,068 candidates.
The release of the results was followed by uproar from parents, stakeholders, rights activists and candidates who were not satisfied with the poor performance of many candidates. Not comfortable with the cries of these fellows, the responsive erudite professor at the helm of affairs at JAMB, Professor Is-hak Oloyede quickly constituted an investigative committee that included computer science experts who examined the complaints. In their report, they blamed the observed errors on technical glitches as was explained by the body’s registrar, Oloyede.
According to the computer systems-based investigation, 379,997 candidates made up of 206,160 from 65 centres in Lagos and 173,387 from 62 centres in the Owerri zone were affected by the error. Another examination was quickly set again for candidates in the zones affected by the glitches before Professor Oloyede and his team could manage to pacify the public.
As the dust stared by the poor handling of the year’s UTME was settling down, the nation woke up into yet another ugly reality. The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, Nigeria was caught in the web of night examination of its 2025 candidates in the English language in May. WAEC blamed the incident on the leakage of the earlier paper set for the examination and its hurried provision of a different test. Some students wrote their examinations with the aid of candles and torch lights as late as 9 Pm on the 28th day of May, 2025.
Meanwhile, time has come to prove that what happened to WASCE candidates in May was act 1, scene one.
The scene two was seen when the results were released on the 4th of August, 2025. The poor outcome of the examination was noticed as usual by parents and all other stakeholders before WAEC admitted that there were glitches in the released results. The examining body made corrections and advised candidates to recheck their results.
The embarrassing discrepancies between the initial and reviewed results of the 2025 WASSCE released by WAEC exposed the sub-regional examination body’s limitations in adopting innovations for optimal examination outcomes.
This of course, worsened the no-confidence stance of Nigerians over the nation’s education sector. However, a ray of hope sprung up from two different occurrences in Delta state recently. The first was the news that the Delta state’s five-member contingent emerged champions at the 2025 World Basic Schools Debate Championship held in Doha, Qatar. These young lads have since been gifted the amount of N20 million each as reward for their superlative performance at the event. Stretching the joy of Nigerians over this feat further, the spokesperson for the team members, Miss Splendour Ikhameteh of the Government Model Secondary school, Asaba said they drew their strength during the event from “the spirit of Delta”.
The award presentation ceremony also offered an opportunity for Hon. Samuel Mariere, Executive Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to thank the Governor of Delta state for his unwavering support for the education sector, recalling that he was the first to pay the 2025 counterpart funding for UBEC-SUBEB projects and attributed the victory of the team to this and many other contributions to the educational needs of the people.
In the second case, Delta State-born Abanjo Victory from Abavo in Ika South Local Government Area recently emerged best graduating University of Port Harcourt student with 4.98 GPA as was disclosed during this year’s convocation ceremony of the University held in Port-Harcourt, Rivers state, Nigeria.
These acts of educational excellence, no doubts point to the direction of renewed hope towards the revamping of education in Nigeria, using the Delta state template. The most inspiring aspects of these accomplishments include the fact that the girl-child is fast proving to be very relevant in the developmental pursuit of the nation. Apart from Miss Abanjo who fell short of garnering the maximum points required for a first class degree by two percent, two of the five-member contingents to Qatar were girls. And they are mostly products of public schools in Delta state.
There is therefore need for governments at all levels to leverage on this encouraging performance by public school students, including those from rural communities such as Ekwuoma-Abavo to renew the attention paid to these learning centres that currently serve the needs of the less privileged in our society who cannot afford the fees charged in private schools.
In these days when teachers hardly attend classes for five days in a week due to transport difficulties, it will not be out of place for schools and teachers that nurtured these lads to glory to also be rewarded with at least a path on the back. This will spur other schools and teachers to do their best at all times in the up-bringing of the country’s youths.
Time has come for better motivation of teachers at the country’s primary and post primary levels. It is not appropriate to continue to relegate teachers to the background in considering sectors for higher rewards for labour.
The oil sector is not more important than the education sector while considering the sector-by-sector contributions to national growth.
While appreciating the eagerness of the handlers of the education policies in the country towards bringing Nigeria up to speed with modern education scientific tools, it will make better sense for the CBT approach to be thoroughly prepared before the compulsory implementations. Village schools lack electricity to power computers. And most parents at that level cannot afford the device for their children.
Meanwhile, governments should begin to consider the grading of schools according to the facilities and subjects they offer as was the case in the time past. Headmasters and principals in grade ‘A’ schools should not be placed on the same salary scale as those in grade ‘B’ or ‘C’. In addition, the scope of studies in schools should be widened to adequately accommodate sports and other extra curricula activities that can, in turn increase the pupils and students’ opportunity space as they advance in the choice of careers.
Beyond demanding for the encouragement of teachers by the various governments, the educators themselves must begin to imbibe the attitude of professionalism that will make their jobs attractive and interesting. Shabby dressing by many of them cannot attract quality benefits even from the infinite beings. This is where the professional Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria must continue to offer appropriate guides to members.
