The decline in educational standard in Imo State has been faulted by a governorship aspirant of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA in Imo State, Chief Okey Ezeh.
Ezeh heaped the blame on the door step of Governor Rochas Okorocha’s administration, saying the poor performance of Imo State students in external examinations in Nigeria is a clear reflection of the decline in the sector in Imo State since 2011.
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Ezeh’s reaction came on the heels of a statement credited to Governor Rochas Okorocha’s Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemedo, where he claimed that the educational policy of the Okorocha administration had brought positive changes to the education sector, thus the reason the Governor will not toy with the issue the issue of who succeeds him in 2019. The governorship aspirant said Governor Okorocha should resign and permanently retire from public life because of the “devastation” he has unleashed on the educational sector of the State
He said “Statistics, indices and indicators have shown that our educational sector urgently requires a state of emergency.
“The performances of our children in external examinations are currently nothing to write home about. In 2013, of the 30,218 candidates that sat for the June/July NECO examinations, only 17,465 could get credit pass in five subjects including English and Maths. In 2014, the figure dropped to 16,863. In 2015, it became abysmally poor that only only 38% of the total candidates could pass.
“The situation is more unbearable if you looked at the November/December results of the same NECO examinations for 2016, in which just 22% of the total number of candidates could obtain credit pass in five subjects and in 2015 which only 168 candidates passed five subjects. In 2014, just 9.2% made it.
He continued “Records show that between 2011 and 2017 the admission rate of Imo students into tertiary institutions have drastically taken a nosedive. Of the 118,169 Imo candidates that took JAMB in 2010, 28,725, which represents 24% got admitted. However, in 2011, only 22% of the 120, 417 candidates could be admitted. In 2012, only 21% of the 130,863 candidates made it, and the percentage remained unchanged in 2013, and dropped further to 19% in 2014 and 2015, and to 18.6% in 2016, even when the national average increased to 30%.”
Mr. Ezeh stated that the neglect of the education sector in the State has made most key courses in the State’s tertiary institutions to lose accreditation to the National University Commission, NUC.
” In 2010, about 801 Imo candidates were admitted to study Law, while in 2012 and 2014, only 551 and 373 were admitted respectively. This is not also different from Engineering, which had 1,485 in 2010, but dropped to 863 in 2012 and has continued to drop till date. The worst is Pharmacy, which recorded 164 in 2010 but dropped to just 8 in 2012.”
He said the most worrisome is that the future of Imo children have been jeopardized, stressing that any child that is denied a sound education has been denied a future. He assured that an APGA led administration come 2019 will overhaul the State’s educational architecture to reinvent the school system and reverse these negative trends in order to create a future every Imo child.