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Ilorin varsity don advocates regulatory body for exam bodies
A University lecturer and Professor in the Department of Adult and Primary Education, University of Ilorin, Prof. Henry Owolabi, has canvassed for a regulatory body to control the activities of examination bodies in the country.
Owolabi made the call on Thursday in Ilorin at the 177th inaugural lecture of UNILORIN in a paper titled: “Quest for value and raising its worth”.
The don said that there existed 38 examining bodies at the Basic Education Certificate level and three at the Senior School Certificate level without a regulatory body in the country.
He advised that all tests used for learners should be subjected to quality control standards.
The varsity don said that the falling standard of secondary education in Nigeria might not be unconnected with ineffective supervision and quality control.
“Effective monitoring, supervision and quality control must be brought to the fore to ensure the right knowledge, skills and understanding an individual acquires from attending school,’’ he added.
The professor of adult and primary education faulted the process of subjecting final year results only to quality control through external examiners.
“Final year results are what happened for the first three, four or five years before the graduation.
“What happens to other previous assessment and performance of students that the final results may not adequately show the ability of the students?’’.
Owolabi advised that a minimum of 60 per cent of total score should be generated from formative assessments at all levels, while a higher proportion might be considered for the lower and middle basic levels.
“There is the need for content assessment, regulation, standardisation, control and quality assurance measures through the examination office with trained evaluation functionaries within each university for quality assurance purposes.
According to him, a reform should be instituted from universities in recognition of what obtains in other tertiary institutions to ensure that the route to the top in academic and professional education is delineated from all spheres of knowledge.
Owolabi said that evaluation should be made to play its role in the nation’s education by ensuring that no decision, policy, programme or practice was put in place or modified except after it had been subjected to evaluation.
“This should start with the ministries and extend to agencies, departments and institutions as well as non-governmental agencies,” he said.
He warned against what he called “policy somersaults’’, which had been regular with the education system, saying that well-informed decisions should be taken instead of those emanating from the parochial interests of leaders.
He also urged educationists in Nigeria to introduce democratic principles and promotion of independent, problem-solving, creative, scientific and critical thinking to the school classrooms and at every level of the nation’s education.
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