2012 WASSCE results out, best in three years

WRITTEN BY OLABISI DEJI-FOLUTILE AUGUST 11, 2012. The West African Examinations Council on Friday released the results of the May/June 2012 West African Senior School Certificate Examination. The candidates for this year’s examination performed better than their counterparts in the last three years. A total of 649,156 candidates representing 38.81 per cent of the total candidates that sat for the examination this year obtained credits in five subjects and above, including English Language and Mathematics. This represents an 8.9 per cent increase above last year’s performance, where 471,474 candidates representing 30.91 per cent had five credits and above in five subjects, including English and Mathematics. In 2010, 317,142 candidates representing 23.71 per cent of the candidates that sat for the examination obtained five credits including English and Mathematics. Addressing journalists in Lagos on Friday, the Head of the Nigeria National Office of WAEC, Dr. Iyi Nwadiae, said a total of 1,695,878 candidates registered for this year’s examination out of which 1,672,224 sat for the examination. He said out of the total number of candidates, 1,545,004, representing 91.10 per cent, had their results fully released, while 150,874 candidates, representing 8.90 per cent had a few of their subjects still being processed because of some errors mainly traceable to the candidates and schools either in the course of registration or writing the examination. Nwadiae said of the total number of candidates that sat for the examination, 771,731 candidates (46.14 per cent), obtained six credits and above and 952,156 candidates representing 56.93 per cent obtained five credits and above. Apart from improved results this year, the WAEC boss stated that cases of examination malpractices declined compared with previous years. He said the positive trend was an indication that investment in the education sector was beginning to yield dividends, adding that cases of malpractice would naturally reduce when candidates were adequately prepared for examinations. He, however, said the results of 112,000 candidates, representing 6.70 per cent were being withheld in connection with various cases of examination malpractice. He explained that the cases were being investigated, adding that the reports of the investigations would be presented to the Nigerian Examinations Committee of the council in due course for consideration. He said the committee’s decision would be communicated to the affected candidates through their schools. He said 114 blind candidates registered for the examination. Out of this number, 95 candidates sat for the examination. He said candidates could check their results on the council’s website: www.waecdirect.org within the next 48 hours. Source: The Punch

‘ICT can solve unemployment’

Written by Boco Edet Thursday, 09 August 2012 01:23 The application of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is a solution for several millions of Nigerian students who want to break away from the problem of unemployment in the country. National Coordinator of Digitest, an annual ICT-based creative camp and competition for children, Ibukun Odusote, said this informed the choice of this year’s theme, “Digital Solutions to Youth Unemployment.” Odusote who spoke at the Capital Science Academy, Kuje in Abuja, where over 200 students are being hosted for the event, said the children would learn digital solutions that would multiply their capabilities to solve issues. Odusote who was represented by the Chairman, Board of Trustees of Digital Peers International, Adeolu Odusote, said young people need to be engaged with different skills that can make them entrepreneurial. Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Aremu Augustine, said it was important to expose children early to ICT as in the next few years it may be difficult to transact business without internet technology. Source: Daily Trust

The trouble with online education

Written by Mark Edmundson Thursday, 09 August 2012 01:28 Understanding what it is that students have to teach teachers can help us to deal with one of the most vexing issues now facing colleges and universities: online education. At my school, the University of Virginia, that issue did more than vex us; it came close to tearing the university apart. A few weeks ago our president, Teresa A. Sullivan, was summarily dismissed and then summarily reinstated by the university’s board of visitors. One reason for her dismissal was the perception that she was not moving forward fast enough on Internet learning. Stanford was doing it, Harvard, Yale and M.I.T. too. But Virginia, it seemed, was lagging. Just this week, in fact, it was announced that Virginia, along with a number of other universities, signed on with a company called Coursera to develop and offer online classes. But can online education ever be education of the very best sort? It is here that the notion of students teaching teachers is illuminating. A friend and fellow professor said to me: You don’t just teach students, you have to learn from them too. It took a minute because it sounded like he was channeling Huck Finn but I figured it out. With every class we teach, we need to learn who the people in front of us are. We need to know where they are intellectually, who they are as people and what we can do to help them grow. Teaching, even when you have a group of a hundred students on hand, is a matter of dialogue. Online education is a one-size-fits-all endeavor. It tends to be a monologue and not a real dialogue. The Internet teacher, even one who responds to students via e-mail, can never have the immediacy of contact that the teacher on the scene can, with his sensitivity to unspoken moods and enthusiasms. This is particularly true of online courses for which the lectures are already filmed and in the can. It doesn’t matter who is sitting out there on the Internet watching; the course is what it is. Not long ago I watched a pre-filmed online course from Yale about the New Testament. It was a very good course. The instructor was hyper-intelligent, learned and splendidly articulate. But the course wasn’t great and could never have been. There were Yale students on hand for the filming, but the class seemed addressed to no one in particular. It had an anonymous quality. In fact there was nothing you could get from that course that you couldn’t get from a good book on the subject. A truly memorable college class, even a large one, is collaboration between teacher and students. It’s a one-time-only event. Learning at its best is a collective enterprise, something we’ve known since Socrates. You can get knowledge from an Internet course if you’re highly motivated to learn. But in real courses the students and teachers come together and create an immediate and vital community of learning. A real course creates intellectual joy, at least in some. I don’t think an Internet course ever will. Internet learning promises to make intellectual life more sterile and abstract than it already is and also, for teachers and for students alike, far more lonely. Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, is the author of Why Read? Source: Daily Trust