Study, Pass Exams the e-Way
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Students who experience difficulties passing transitional examinations now have solution in new ICT operations
By Andrew Airahuobhor
Ngozi Onyeulo, an undergraduate student of Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State, has every cause to be grateful to God for the revolution in Information and Communication Technology, ICT. This is because it has helped her to improve her performance in examinations.
Having sat the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, examinations three times without success, she was frustrated and had resigned to fate. Onyeulo started writing JAMB in 2003. She never scored more than 145 points on any of these occasions.
Tired of staying at home, in 2005 she decided to pick up employment as an office assistant where she had unhindered access to the Internet. Onyeulo told Newswatch that she came in contact with an on-line learning application where she studied past examination questions and techniques for answering examination questions. That year, she sat for Universities Matriculation Examination, UME, and scored 275. That qualified her for an admission place to study Mass Communication at Olabisi Onabanjo Universities. But Onyeulo could not gain admission into the school because she could not scale through the Post-Jamb test hurdle. She was admitted into Tai Solarin University of Education in 2006.
Onyeulo told Newswatch that effiko.com, the portal from where she learnt examination techniques helped her a lot. "I was able to grab certain skills on-line through effiko. In it, you answer questions and get instant results. I think I was the first person to visit the site," she said. This was made possible by her determination to learn.
Another undergraduate simply identified as Azuka had a similar experience. He too visited an e-learning site while preparing for the last UME. When he sat the examination, he scored 235 as opposed to his previous poor performances.
Newswatch was told that on-line learning applications have been tested and proved successful with other developed countries in preparing students for all types of examinations.
Newswatch visited effiko website to confirm the application. The application allows students to practise past examination questions and makes available a marking scheme, which provides students with the information on how the questions should be answered. When Newswatch contacted officials of the company, Anthony Ogidi, business executive, told Newswatch that effiko online learning portal is essentially designed to enable people in transitional classes and preparing for transitional examinations such as JAMB, National Examinations Council, NECO, and Senior School Certificate Examination, SSCE, to study using WAEC and NECO curriculum. The application is as a result of research on successful students who always seem to pass excellently at first attempt. The research result indicated successful examination candidates always prepare for examinations using past questions backed by an answer scheme.
This portal, according to Ogidi, improves learning through online studies. Ogidi explained that it has study materials in different subjects and students are allowed to download the materials for study at their convenience.
According to Ogidi, effiko gives the students the opportunity to assess their performances as they can get instant answers once they finish answering the questions. Also, the students get the correct workings of each question which are already put online. From the working the student learns why he or she failed a particular question. With such practice, the students stand a better chance of improving performance. Ogidi told Newswatch that they were currently working on an upgrade of the portal so that questions could be generated at random. "We are looking at the future where examinations like JAMB could be done online and results received instantly," Ogidi said. He added that they were now working on copyright and would be fully opened to traffic after its formal launching coming up soon.
With the application, students could sit examinations on-line and answer questions which would be marked immediately and the results received instantly online without any human interference. This would to a large extent reduce examination malpractices that have dogged examinations in the country.
But many people expressed fears that the cost of using such application which they said may be beyond the average Nigerian. This is because the student has to pay for the time at a cyber café and equally purchase a card to log into the website for study. Newswatch learnt from ICT experts that with the popularity of ICT in Nigerian economy coupled with the increased number of students that would be accessing the Internet for academic and other purposes, operators of cyber cafés could be prevailed upon to reduce the cost of their log-in time.
With this new perspective in secondary education, the federal government's clamour for the use of ICT as a tool for educational development appears to be yielding fruits.
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