WHY YOU ARE NOT YET THE BEST IN YOUR CLASS

The rate of mass failure of students at WAEC and NECO final exams in recent times has been very terrible. And it is no different in the higher institutions as many undergraduates also struggle to get good grades in their exams.

For instance, in WAEC final exams today in Nigeria, only 3 or 4 candidates out of every 10 will obtain up to 5 credits to include English Language and Maths in one sitting.

Many factors in the society have been said to be responsible for this mass failure and overall poor performance—poor learning environment, inadequate teaching facilities, unqualified or uncommitted teachers, poor teachers' welfare, high student-teacher ratio or high number of students in class, parental negligence and so on.

Yes, that's very true. But the major factor is that students now have a nonchalant attitude to their studies these days! We all agree. Society may not get better overnight, but you will be writing an exam soon. Will you pass excellently? Or, will you fail woefully and blame society?

As a student, you may not be able to change society, but you can refuse to be a failure and also decide to pass excellently, you know. Even if society gets better and you don't take their studies seriously, you are still not going to perform well in exams, let alone becoming the best in the class or school.

I have had a fair share of society, too. I wasn’t so lucky to attend a super school. I went to a public school. See, I didn't enjoy a well-stocked library or a well-equipped laboratory in the school I attended. In fact, throughout second term in JSS 2, I sat on the floor.

Sometimes, my colleagues and I had to dismantle condemned chairs and desks and reconstruct them into any shape just to have a place to sit in class. Our teachers did the best they could to teach us.

There were times the scheme of work for the term or session was not completed. Whenever any of our female teachers got pregnant, we knew we would have a deficiency in that subject as she would not be in school most of the time. It was that bad.

When I got to SSS 3, a lot of my colleagues ran off to other schools where they felt their success in the final exams was guaranteed. You know those schools that have become special centers, where it is said that they write the answers to exams on the board for candidates to copy.

I stayed back because I was confident of myself. Plus, the WAEC registration fees in those schools was sky-high—too expensive. But I knew WAEC would not fail me if I wrote the correct answers in the exams, after all, I had been preparing for the exam long ago. You know I had become a serious student in class.

I had long understood that it is not mere haphazard reading of one's notebooks and textbooks just before an exam that guarantees success, but to apply the technique for effective study and exam preparation. Our WAEC results were out and I got 7 distinctions as the best results in my school.

Today, students are no longer studious. If you are not studious, you can’t become the best in your class. When you grow up to become a banker or a musician or a blogger or an Engineer or a model, make sure you are the best. You have to become a personality in this world. And that comes with responsibilities, too. It means that you will have to take everything you do seriously.

But for now, you are not yet a banker or a popular musician, you are a student. That’s it—a student. Become the best student that there is. A student is supposed to do what? STUDY! Otherwise, you are a school boy or girl.

Entertainment is the number one distraction that steals your time and attention. It includes social media, music, movies, games, football, teenage dating, hanging out with friends and so on. Most times, the students who get promoted from one class to another didn't really deserve to pass. Whenever I examine some students in the senior classes closely, I'm always surprised how they managed to get promoted up to the senior classes.

And when they manage to pass out of secondary school, JAMB UTME gives them a tough time. If they pass UTME by any means or manage to score 180, they will face another Goliath—Post UTME.

And that’s why some can’t get admission soon after they finish secondary school. They couldn’t make it. They did not prepare for it since when they were in SSS 1. So it’s now very difficult. And when they are now in the higher institution, they will find out that they are still struggling with some basics.

WAEC and NECO are examination bodies. They don't manage the schools; they set exam questions based on syllabus. The fault is not theirs because they are there to maintain standard. You don't expect them to lower the standard just so that you will pass. The problem is in the classroom; something has gone wrong with students’ classroom behaviour.

Students no longer study to acquire knowledge—all they want is to pass the exam, so they manage to read their books, if at all, only when exam is approaching or resort to exam malpractice.

You see, most students don’t desire to excel in class. But you have to be different. You will agree with me that it is glorious to excel in your academics.

Take your studies seriously. You can have the best result in your school exams. You can pass your certificate exams in flying colours. You can become the best in class and finish as the best graduating student in the University.

Start today.

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