After
two failed attempts at the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME,
Mr. Seyi Adeosun (not real names) sought to register his 19 year old son,
Thomas, with a remedial school to help improve his chances of scoring higher in
the next exams so as to gain admission into a university. According to Adeosun,
upon meeting the owner of the remedial school “my son was asked the school and
course of study of his choice which he answered. To my utmost surprise, I was
told it would cost me N200,000 to secure admission in that department of the
school of his choice. Naturally, that was the last they saw of us and my son is
almost done with his studies in the varsity
.”
Remedial education Remedial education was first started with the aim of
assisting students achieve expected competencies in core academic skills. But
that aim seems to be defeated as a visit to some remedial centers show only a
handful of students are in classes while the rest were seen chatting away in
groups. Yet, their operators smile to the banks due to increasing patronage.
Vanguard Learning sought the views of operators, parents and students to know
if these centers have outlived their usefulness, if the operators are involved
in admission racketeering and why they have become hubs for youngsters to
fratenise.
Pointing out that the centers started to meet
the academic needs of students, an operator, Mr. Shittu Fatai of Era Tutors,
Olodi Apapa, Lagos, said “We started this business to meet a need because
students sometimes don’t make all their papers when they sit for WAEC so to
ensure they make all in GCE, they come to us for extra coaching. “Admittedly,
students will always be students. They are youths and are exuberant, we cannot
say they should not mingle or interact with each other because this is not a
conventional school.
Nonetheless we try to instil discipline and
send away those that disturbing.” On involvement with admission racketeering,
Fatai had this to say. “We do not arrange admission for any of our students so
if they pass, they go. I do not promise parents admission for their wards as I
can’t be here and be organising admission for anybody.” Highlighting the
importance of providing such educational services in tutorial centres can’t be
overemphasized, an education blogger, Benjamin Fidelis Ugbana, said such
centres assisted him passing his SSCE examinations, because the secondary
school he attended has shortage of qualified teachers in key subjects areas
like English Language and Mathematics.
His
words “I attended a public secondary school and had great teachers in most
subjects except for English language and Mathematics, and having a grade less
than C6 in any of these subjects would require one to sit for the O’ level exam
afresh as one wouldn’t gain admission into any higher institution without
credit passes in these subjects. “Then, the level of supervision and
inspection, by both external and internal authorities, was very low and
teachers who hated their jobs, due to the poor remuneration, took their
students for granted. My English and Mathematics teachers both had same other
things in common. “The only scenarios I can recall about our English classes
are, ‘open to page 432, read the comprehension at the top of the page, and
answer the questions below’, ‘everyone settle down, let’s do an exercise.
It’s
time for Dictation’ and so on. The Mathematics teacher wasn’t any better but we
were careful in accepting whatever she says and were always correcting her
errors from the basic mathematical skills we had. Fear of failure “At some
point, we were bothered we were all going to fail Mathematics in the final
examination, until the idea of patronizing Tutorial centres came to mind. My
classmates and I successfully passed the SSCE because of our involvement in
lessons at tutorial centres. “After school, we’d all move from one centre to
the other in Surulere to have a better learning experience, especially in
science subjects, before retiring home at about 6:00pm. We paid by the hour and
also attended special weekend classes for a fee. The bottom-line was we were
fully prepared and passed better than our mates who depended only on what we
were taught in school.” In the same vein, Love Ebitimi, one time patroniser of
a remedial school, said “For my first JAMB, I didn’t use lesson, I just wrote
and scored 233. In my second JAMB, because I had stayed home for about a year
and needed to refresh my memory, I registered with a tutorial center. Though
there were distractions from friends and other students there, which is normal
in secondary schools, I knew I had to concentrate.
That
year I got 244, I used it to gain admission to UNIBEN.” Calling for the
scrapping of these centers, Mrs. Rosaline Afolabi, President, Lagos Branch
Nigerwives, an association of foreign women married to Nigerians, said they
have become money making machines for their owners. She said “Remedial centers
just rip people off their hard earned money as the owners and teachers make
money while the students only benefit to pass exams, especially those preparing
for entrance exams in universities. These don’t exist abroad because education
is well supervised. The Nigerian education sector needs to be overhauled while
this practice is seriously looked into.” Agreeing that remedial centres have
outlived their usefulness, a former coordination of a centre, Mr. Henry Sunday,
said “gone are the days when these centres complemented formal education, as
they have been a beehive for pleasure seeking students and money milking
centres for the organisers.
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