By Babatunde Kaka
The emergence of Ogunmodede Senior College, Epe, as one of the schools with the best results in the recently concluded 2020 West African Examination Senior School Certificate Examination in Education District III is no doubt a milestone achievement, not only for the schools alone but for all education stakeholders and observers in the entire Epe Division. The development, however, is an indication that schools in the division can replicate such feat when the right teaching and learning strategies are applied.
It would be recalled that about a year ago, the mass failure of SS3 students in Epe sparked outrage and spread like wildfires based on the new promotion system adopted by Education District III.
In some instances, the bad WASSCE results became a bitter pill to swallow which geared some of the aggrieved and disgruntled students, in their brazen show of shame, to stage protest around the community. The protesters visited the palace of the kings in Epe, the Police station and local Government secretariat for reasons best known to them.
The development, which went viral, became the talk of the town amongst folks both offline and online. With a bid to finding a lasting solution to such abysmal performance, a group of youths in the community came together to form an NGO, Epe Division Education Resuscitation Coalition, EDERC, led by one of her promising youths, Osifeko Mark Olaniyi.
The body organised an education stakeholders meeting after which they issued a communique and submitted to the appropriate quarters for action before COVID struck.
It is however heartwarming and exciting to note that the curve of mass failure in schools from Epe division is gradually being flattened. It is on good authority that while both Ogunmode and Epe Girls’ Senior High School recorded 100%, Army Children Senior recorded 76.8% success in the just concluded WASSCE. The analysis is based on credit passes in both English, Mathematics and three other subjects.
Also, a student of Lagos State Senior Model College, Agbowa, Miss Akinola Oyindamola Sofiat emerged the best WASSCE candidate in Education District III and the second-best candidate in Lagos State at large. These are enviable achievements that should be built upon to launch Epe Division into greater academic heights in the coming years.
Ekohotblog spoke with the Principal of Ogunmodede Senior High School, Epe, Prince Segun Osinaike, who shared how he and his teachers were able to achieve 100% success.
The Epe branch Secretary of All Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools, ANCOPSS, noted the immense contributions of the TG/PS, Dr Mrs Olufolayimika Ayandele, whose blueprint he followed in making sure the Students succeed.
“Ogunmodede Senior College had one of the best results in the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE, in Epe Division and the entire Education District III and we give God all the glory. There were challenges but we were strategic in achieving the feat, in the sense that from the onset, we had a mindset that we want to move from the old status where the School doesn’t perform creditably. The first strategy was to prune the number of Students gaining promotion into the terminal class from about 570 in SS1 to 105 in SS3.
“Besides, we had strategic improvement plans in place which include peer group mentoring, that is, mentoring five students per teacher. These five students were mentored per teacher in all domains of learning which are cognitive, affective and psychomotor. A teacher to 5 students makes monitoring easy and these Students to adjust and perform creditably.
“I must give credit to my boss, Tutor General Permanent Secretary, Education District III, Dr Mrs Olufolayimika Ayandele, who gave us the blueprint. We didn’t find it easy to key into her blueprint because it involved a lot of hard work. There were times we organized daily early morning classes, Saturday lessons and most importantly, teachers who mentored the Students were WAEC examiners within and some contacted from outside. They exposed the Students to the vital areas needed to excel “, he said.
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