By Aideloje Ojo
Minna
Deputy vice-chancellor and lecturer at the Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida University, Lapai, Professor Samuel Kolo Tswanya, have attributed mass failure of English Language in public examinations to general deficiency in teaching and learning at primary and post-primary levels.
Tswanya stated this at an inaugural lecture titled: “Academic English for Academic Competence: The Challenge for Higher Education in Nigeria” delivered at the university’s main campus Lapai.
He expressed disappointment that students’ proficiency in English as measured by West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) was rapidly declining.
“For instance the failure rate in English in the past 10 years has been in the region of 70-75 per cent, annually, which has been very disturbing and unacceptable”.
While recommending attitudinal change in teaching and learning methods, Tswanya pointed out that over 80 per cent of Nigerian teachers still teach through analogue method of “teacher talk to pupil listen and chalk method”.
He stressed the need to introduce and effectively use tutors and lecturers who were ICT literate, adding that “for now, more than 80 per cent of the teachers in public primary and secondary schools were ICT illiterate”.
In his opening remark, the vice-chancellor of the university, Professor Mohammed Nasir Maiturare, said his administration was determined to engrave the name of the institution in the global ranking of universities and solicited for maximum support from stakeholders.
He thanked the Niger state government for its overwhelming support and assistance for the university over the years, in ensuring that it became one of the best in the country.
He said that the inaugural lecture was the third in his one-and-a half year’s old administration and the sixth in the series presented by the university lecturers.
