Recently, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, disclosed that common entrance examination into Junior Secondary School will be scrapped and replaced with the Learner Identification Number, which schools will use to track the academic progress of their pupils. In other words, primary school pupils will be assessed through a Continuous Assessment scheme, which will determine their suitability for admission into Junior Secondary School.

The minister maintained that the new evaluation system is more comprehensive and efficient because it will monitor a pupil’s performance from Primary One to Primary Six and will not be broken even if the pupil moves from one school to another in any part of the country. The minister also stressed that the new policy will help to address gaps in the transition from primary to secondary education. He  also urged governors to build more primary schools in order to accommodate more pupils and ensure their participation in the education system.

The implication of the new scheme is that the old Common Entrance Examination would be phased out and replaced with the Continuous Assessment scheme, enhanced through the Learner Identification Number. As plausible as this new policy by the Federal Government may appear, it is fraught with many difficulties and, therefore, may not be suitable for the country at the moment. In order to effectively utilise and implement the Learner Identification Number, primary schools across the country must have information technology facilities to track the progress of pupils and keep records of their continuous assessment marks. Given that many primary schools in the country are located in remote areas and do not even have basic amenities like electricity, the new policy will be very difficult to implement.

Instead of building more primary schools, we enjoin the state governments to rehabilitate the existing ones, which are dilapidated. Many pupils in primary schools across the country receive lessons under trees. The primary school system in Nigeria urgently requires structural and academic reforms, but not the scrapping of the Common Entrance Examination.

The argument by the minister that many pupils fail to progress to secondary school after primary school cannot be attributed to the Common Entrance Examination scheme. Nigeria is not yet ripe for the Continuous Assessment scheme at the primary school level. Therefore, the Common Entrance Examination should not be scrapped. It gives the system the opportunity to directly appraise the pupils through a regulated examination. There is no way anyone can argue that the Common Entrance Examination is responsible for the failure of pupils to progress to Junior Secondary Schools.

Using the Continuous Assessment alone to gain admission into secondary school will come with its own challenges, including corruption, nepotism and manipulation. It will further lower the standard of education in our primary schools. It will compromise the admission of pupils into Unity Schools. The likelihood of parents colluding with teachers to award marks to their children will be high.

The problems facing our primary school system include dearth of teachers, poor funding and inadequate equipment. Most of the primary schools are hardly maintained. Many depend on old students for their maintenance and even staffing. Government should pay great attention to primary education and ensure that the pupils are adequately prepared for secondary school. Getting it right at this foundation level will translate to success at the other levels of education.

Education plays a significant role in shaping a country’s future. At the basic level, the country’s education system must not be experimented with at all. Continuous Assessment at the primary school level is not the solution to the systemic challenges facing education at that level. If the Federal Government wishes to revive and remodel the primary school education system in the country, then it must focus on matters such as the welfare of teachers, infrastructure renewal and making it accessible and affordable.

Some primary schools in the country are funded by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). The PTA in most parts of the country pays the salaries of the few teachers. Many primary schools in the country rely on teachers from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The Common Entrance Examination does not pose any problem to the progression of pupils to Junior Secondary Schools. Nobody has complained about the unsuitability of the Common Entrance Examination. The examination is competitive and should be retained. Scrapping it could limit the options for pupils and their parents.

Also, education is on the concurrent legislative list and states should be allowed to formulate their own policies. The Federal Government should, therefore, reconsider its plans to scrap the Common Entrance Examination into Junior Secondary School.

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