21. The two
Ministries of Education with their Cabinet Ministers plus experienced Educators need to set specific goals (5– 10-year plans) and detailed road maps for achieving the goals. Once approved by the President / Cabinet there must be iron determination for follow up. “Ask most of our past Ministers of Education (except Mrs. Ezekwesili) after one year in office what is the number of Engineers, or Doctors or Ecologists he/she hoped to produce each year. They didn’t know because they spent half of the time paying political obeisance, stealing money or covering their backs. The whole set up is a mess” as mentioned by someone.
22. Lets fast track our educational policies and set-ups to tally with our daily realities. For instance there are words which our students come across each day such as “fantabulousity” or “femme fatale” and abbreviations such as “WTF” which The Oxford Dictionary has approved but WAEC markers will mark as incorrect. Mind you, our students come across these words daily in Newspapers, on the Internet, Phones, Television, and Radio and actually assume them as usable in WAEC / NECO exams. Those marking need to be retrained accordingly.
23. Whether a student passed or fail WAEC / NECO should not be based on Maths and English but on passing a local language and general paper which should cover current affairs, local music, drama, culture, games, religious co-operation, respect for ethnic differences etc.
24. Mathematics schemes of work should have a part called Mathematics Practical with lots of time spent outside the classrooms to link the subject to reality. There should also be emphasis on explaining mathematical concepts and usual examination terms to students to remove the dread surrounding the subject.
25. Post retired and serving soldiers to schools for enforcing discipline and development of Sports and Games.
26. Ensure all schools, private or public, deliver Test and Continuous Assessment reports directly to Parents on Open Days or at home if not present.
27. Remedial students and those taking external exams are the ones to be made to go to school on Saturdays between 9:00 am and 1 noon. They should have a 1 hour break before the others coming in at 2pm. They should be taken through Study and Examination Skills and Motivational discussions. It should be a PP venture and parents should stop private lessons and be made to pay an average of what they pay for their children’s private lessons per term.
28. Close down all the unserious after-school lessons going on in many public schools to effect the PP venture.
29. In addition to Class Register let all students sign in into school each morning at the gate. Each school should have an admin officer or the guidance counselor to look at stats arising from such sign-ins daily to know which students’ attendance records need to be followed up and corrected.
30. Principals and school management should be empowered to discipline tutors by way of limited suspensions. For more serious misdemeanours which can lead to dismissals discipline by way of recommendations to the Ministry of Education should continue..
31. Tutors should be made to send in weekly WORK DONE Sheets detailing any administrative duty done in addition to academic ones.
32. Lesson Notes are supposed to be checked by School Management specifically by HODs before actual lessons. But no one is really checking them in most schools. We need to find a solution to this.
TO BE CONTINUED
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