*Says govt concerned over mass failure in WAEC

BY Daniel Idonor

ABUJA – THE Minister of  Education, Prof Ruqayyatu Rufai’a yesterday urged Nigerians not to expect quick results from on-going reforms in the education sector, saying that changes in the quality of education will become noticeable in five years time while within 10 years there could be a total turnaround.

Speaking with newsmen after her ministry  briefed President Goodluck Jonathan on its targets for the next four years with focus on two main issues: access and equity and standards and quality assurance, she however, hinged her quality assurance time-table on a dutiful implementation of the reforms.

Answering question on the  areas of the briefing, she said “we briefed Mr. President on what is our target for the next four years, explaining that the ministry is going to focus on two main areas: access and equity and standards and quality assurance. So that whatever we are going to do right from primary, junior secondary, secondary and tertiary, we have to focus on the quality of education viz-a-vis access to schools”.

She also spoke on mass failure in the last West African Examination Council, WAEC, saying that “we are much concerned, we cannot celebrate that we had 30.9 per cent this year as against 23 per cent last year because it is still mass failure. What we are doing is to ensure that we put things in place and then ensure that within the next few years, we would have achieved success””.