Dear Nigerians, the reasons for mass failure of our teenagers in public exams are not far fetched.

1 FACEBOOK,YAHOO,TWITTER,MYSPACE and generally browsing on the internet instead of reading their books

2 ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE and EUROPEAN FOOTBALL LEAGUES, it is easy for an average nigerian teenager to know the tha names of all chelsea players but same youths cannot tell you the square root 25 in mathematic. Worse still is that these days instead of seeing inscriptions like UNIVERISTY or SCHOLARS on the exercise books, what you see are pictures of paloma,Drogba,Beyonce,Omotola etc

3 DSTV,Home video and african movie magic, watching television and films endlessly.European champions league,English premiership,Barca,Blues,Chelsea,MANU etc

4 GSM and BLACKBERRY, the average nigerian teenager uses the latest and expensive gsm phones just to show off that they belong,when they are actually nothing.

5[b] GSM TEXT LANGUAGE[/b], I will not be suprised to see students write words like your(for YOUR), 2moro( For tomorrow) in their EXAM sheets

6 QUEST FOR CHEAP FAME AND WEALTH, The goverment,electronic media(tv and radio) and companies have not been helpful at all.The average nigerian youth especially the girls want to BE silver Birds most beautiful Girl and get cheap money and fame(Nobody has remembered all the previous miss world,but we still remember MOTHER THERESA),they want to win IDOLS WEST AFRICA, they want to be in NOLLYWOOD, they want to be TWO-FACE,they want to win maltina street dance ,they want to win starquest and GULDER ULTIMATE SEARCH

Warning is that wealth gotten by vanity shall DIMINISH.

7 The new craze of TALENT SHOWS: Suddenly The only talents our youths now have are music,dancing,acting and stand up comedies, they no longer have talents for maths,physics and entrepreneurism.
Check out the list:MTN PROJECT FAME,BIG BROTHER,STARQUEST,MALTINA DANCE HALL,AMBO,GUILDER,IDOLS WEST AFRICA,PEAK TALENT HUNT ETC…What a bad distraction
It is only COWBELL that sponsors national mathematics competition and give scholarships to outstanding students in UME exams

8 EVER BUSY PARENTS, Parents are always in search for money,business and jobs,they live home 5am and come back 10pm leaving their children to the care of house helps and teachers in private schools. THEY have forgotten that out of the 24 hours in a day their children will only spend 8am-2pm(6 hrs) in school and in hands of the teachers the remaining 18hrs is spent in the home(wether sleep or not).these same ever busy parents can not look into the books of their teenagers,they don't monitor waht the teenagers watch nor who they associate with.

9 WEAK GOVT POLICIES:The people in Govt see all these vanities on tele and radio and they will not nip them in the bud, because they are naïve and corrupt and so the rot continues


Source

.

Good points, Justirich.
Methinks, the root cause of the deteriorating situation is because the parenting foundation is weak. Young people have been left so much to themselves. No discipline, no training, parents all engaged in one job or the other, trying to make ends meet...thereby not having adequate time for their wards -gone are those days when you get back home from school and there was someone to ask you lotta questions such as what did you study, how was your day, did you finish your classwork, let me see your notebooks...etc. Now, the story is different.

the points you've got there are great, but then I wouldn't agree to point 1-4, because, other developing nations got a bit of them too, yet we don't hear of any recurring woeful academic performance. Does it mean they manage these distractions well?

There are distractions, there will forever be. Its the management of the distractions that matters.

parents are not supposed to be blamed. you all should put the blame on the society. the parents have to clear bills. the whole problem lies on the society and a very week governing policy. Our Governments are a bunch of trash.

doublecross: parents are not supposed to be blamed. you all should put the blame on the society. the parents have to clear bills. the whole problem lies on the society and a very week governing policy. Our Governments are a bunch of trash.

And this your post makes sense to you? Hope you are not a parent sha.

justirich: Dear Nigerians, the reasons for mass failure of our teenagers in public exams are not far fetched.

1 FACEBOOK,YAHOO,TWITTER,MYSPACE and generally browsing on the internet instead of reading their books

2 ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE and EUROPEAN FOOTBALL LEAGUES, it is easy for an average nigerian teenager to know the tha names of all chelsea players but same youths cannot tell you the square root 25 in mathematic. Worse still is that these days instead of seeing inscriptions like UNIVERISTY or SCHOLARS on the exercise books, what you see are pictures of paloma,Drogba,Beyonce,Omotola etc

3 DSTV,Home video and african movie magic, watching television and films endlessly.European champions league,English premiership,Barca,Blues,Chelsea,MANU etc

4 GSM and BLACKBERRY, the average nigerian teenager uses the latest and expensive gsm phones just to show off that they belong,when they are actually nothing.

5[b] GSM TEXT LANGUAGE[/b], I will not be suprised to see students write words like your(for YOUR), 2moro( For tomorrow) in their EXAM sheets

6 QUEST FOR CHEAP FAME AND WEALTH, The goverment,electronic media(tv and radio) and companies have not been helpful at all.The average nigerian youth especially the girls want to BE silver Birds most beautiful Girl and get cheap money and fame(Nobody has remembered all the previous miss world,but we still remember MOTHER THERESA),they want to win IDOLS WEST AFRICA, they want to be in NOLLYWOOD, they want to be TWO-FACE,they want to win maltina street dance ,they want to win starquest and GULDER ULTIMATE SEARCH

Warning is that wealth gotten by vanity shall DIMINISH.

7 The new craze of TALENT SHOWS: Suddenly The only talents our youths now have are music,dancing,acting and stand up comedies, they no longer have talents for maths,physics and entrepreneurism.
Check out the list:MTN PROJECT FAME,BIG BROTHER,STARQUEST,MALTINA DANCE HALL,AMBO,GUILDER,IDOLS WEST AFRICA,PEAK TALENT HUNT ETC…What a bad distraction
It is only COWBELL that sponsors national mathematics competition and give scholarships to outstanding students in UME exams

8 EVER BUSY PARENTS, Parents are always in search for money,business and jobs,they live home 5am and come back 10pm leaving their children to the care of house helps and teachers in private schools. THEY have forgotten that out of the 24 hours in a day their children will only spend 8am-2pm(6 hrs) in school and in hands of the teachers the remaining 18hrs is spent in the home(wether sleep or not).these same ever busy parents can not look into the books of their teenagers,they don't monitor waht the teenagers watch nor who they associate with.

9 WEAK GOVT POLICIES:The people in Govt see all these vanities on tele and radio and they will not nip them in the bud, because they are naïve and corrupt and so the rot continues


Source

Rubbish!!!!

every generation believes the younger generation is in a worse position.
Just because you grew up without a television that means our children should not have a television?
The world is evolving, our parents, (I am almost 50) decried the fact we listened to hip hop & disco music. They didn't know shalamar, kool and the gang or public enemy, now my children listen to D'banj & P square. We watched videos, my children play video games, we read comics, now children are their own heroes in the comics (ie video games).

We all pretend to come from nuclear family - mummy, daddy and 3 to 5 children. Past generations made us believe that was the correct way, however in real life we all have half brothers and sisters. My mama pickin, my papa pickin, my papa wife, etc

When I was growing up there were 13 universities in Nigeria, now there are over 50 (albeit some of dubious quality)

The youth of today are the ones who are bring new technology and developments to society.

In my grandparents generation, the few who were encouraged to go to school, were encouraged to be teachers, court clerks and administrators. The next generation wanted their children to be doctors, lawyers or engineers, in the modern world we expect our children IT gurus, entertainers, top sports people, even a top newscaster.

So stop knocking the youth, the world is changing

Quite interesting because we had need to get two people last week and you can't believe that some young girls whose resume matched what we were searching for failed because they used (ur) and 2(to) etc etc etc in their job application letters!!!!! Crazy!

CIVILISATION.................

Indiscipline and Insanity.

Consumerism and materialism.

The future of Nigeria is very scary.

Quest for materialism,fame and power are d root of social evils and collapse of family institution.

[color=#006600][/color] NA 1, 2 and 7 be the cause of the problems today. with all the chelsea's and man u fans in nigeria,one would be fooled to believe they are been paid for the tension they put themselves through, for the reality show Na big brother every one they use now even for exam hall somebody go dey use DSTV WALKA NOW...Gusssshhh

faithin9ja:



Rubbish!!!!

every generation believes the younger generation is in a worse position.
Just because you grew up without a television that means our children should not have a television?
The world is evolving, our parents, (I am almost 50) decried the fact we listened to hip hop & disco music. They didn't know shalamar, kool and the gang or public enemy, now my children listen to D'banj & P square. We watched videos, my children play video games, we read comics, now children are their own heroes in the comics (ie video games).

We all pretend to come from nuclear family - mummy, daddy and 3 to 5 children. Past generations made us believe that was the correct way, however in real life we all have half brothers and sisters. My mama pickin, my papa pickin, my papa wife, etc

When I was growing up there were 13 universities in Nigeria, now there are over 50 (albeit some of dubious quality)

The youth of today are the ones who are bring new technology and developments to society.

In my grandparents generation, the few who were encouraged to go to school, were encouraged to be teachers, court clerks and administrators. The next generation wanted their children to be doctors, lawyers or engineers, in the modern world we expect our children IT gurus, entertainers, top sports people, even a top newscaster.

So stop knocking the youth, the world is changing

seconded!

faithin9ja:



Rubbish!!!!

every generation believes the younger generation is in a worse position.
Just because you grew up without a television that means our children should not have a television?
The world is evolving, our parents, (I am almost 50) decried the fact we listened to hip hop & disco music. They didn't know shalamar, kool and the gang or public enemy, now my children listen to D'banj & P square. We watched videos, my children play video games, we read comics, now children are their own heroes in the comics (ie video games).

We all pretend to come from nuclear family - mummy, daddy and 3 to 5 children. Past generations made us believe that was the correct way, however in real life we all have half brothers and sisters. My mama pickin, my papa pickin, my papa wife, etc

When I was growing up there were 13 universities in Nigeria, now there are over 50 (albeit some of dubious quality)

The youth of today are the ones who are bring new technology and developments to society.

In my grandparents generation, the few who were encouraged to go to school, were encouraged to be teachers, court clerks and administrators. The next generation wanted their children to be doctors, lawyers or engineers, in the modern world we expect our children IT gurus, entertainers, top sports people, even a top newscaster.

So stop knocking the youth, the world is changing

seconded!

I do not believe in your points and reason,what happen in develop countries,all your reasons are present,yet their wards and children do better academically.Around me,my hope my children use better model phone,yet they do excel in their study,do want us to stop them frm using desktop,laptop,macnote and co."Bi aba guyan ninu odo,bi asebe ninu epo epa,eni mayo ayo."

ftmom: Number 5 soooooooo irks me
Sad that it seems most of them don't even realize that "proper writing" is not for exam scripts alone. It speaks to who you are, just like the way you dress and carry yourself. No offence, but writing in text speak can make you come across as semi-literate or illiterate IMO
With all the challenges already facing Nigerians, we definitely don't need a generation of poor writers who can't determine when it's not appropriate to write text -speak.
Demonstrating good writing skills should be a basic aspiration for educated folks and you should know where text speak belongs if you must use it

Btw, I know I am not a perfect writer myself, but you won't find me using "nyc" for "nice"

It is becoming a national embarrassment. Sometime ago, I marked a couple of exam scripts at the behest of a lecturer friend of mine in one of these fledgling bread and butter private universities, and I was appalled to see university students using "text-speak" abbreviattions so freely. . . ."d", "sth", "4", "xteristics", etc. My goodness! In an examination? It was especially bad towards the end of the scripts; I reckon the students were rushing to beat the submission deadline and had to resort to almost exclusive use of abbreviations in their answers. Needless to say I had a migrane after that ordeal. If I had my way I would have failed all of them, but my friend pointed out that he was obliged to ensure that they passed, otherwise his job might be on the line. Yet these half-baked nitwits would graduate in "flying colours" and get decent jobs ahead of better qualified candidates - because of their family connections and whatnot. This country is a huge joke.

Nigeria will be doomed if the youths don't start reading. Without researches and whatnot, we're going nowhere as a nation.

ftmom: Number 5 soooooooo irks me
Sad that it seems most of them don't even realize that "proper writing" is not for exam scripts alone. It speaks to who you are, just like the way you dress and carry yourself. No offence, but writing in text speak can make you come across as semi-literate or illiterate IMO
With all the challenges already facing Nigerians, we definitely don't need a generation of poor writers who can't determine when it's not appropriate to write text -speak.
Demonstrating good writing skills should be a basic aspiration for educated folks and you should know where text speak belongs if you must use it

Btw, I know I am not a perfect writer myself, but you won't find me using "nyc" for "nice"

Very true. Even though these days the only doors I open to the web are through mobile devices, I still take time to write properly and avoid shorthand because I simply consider it lazy and sometimes potrays the writer as one not given to deep thought. So unfortunate. However like my dad used to say. Its just a phase change thing.

This facts do not matter much. The most important thing is to strike a balance with your studies and not to be carried away by the world of ICT.

OlowoTee: Good points, Justirich.
Methinks, the root cause of the deteriorating situation is because the parenting foundation is weak. Young people have been left so much to themselves. No discipline, no training, parents all engaged in one job or the other, trying to make ends meet...thereby not having adequate time for their wards -gone are those days when you get back home from school and there was someone to ask you lotta questions such as what did you study, how was your day, did you finish your classwork, let me see your notebooks...etc. Now, the story is different.

the points you've got there are great, but then I wouldn't agree to point 1-4, because, other developing nations got a bit of them too, yet we don't hear of any recurring woeful academic performance. Does it mean they manage these distractions well?

I disagree on your closing points. Education standards in most west, western nations at the youth level is declining in the context of the academia. And I will like to distinguish this from information. The world generally is getting more informed but less educated. The brain capacity has a finite amount it desires to store at any point in time.

ftmom: Number 5 soooooooo irks me
Sad that it seems most of them don't even realize that "proper writing" is not for exam scripts alone. It speaks to who you are, just like the way you dress and carry yourself. No offence, but writing in text speak can make you come across as semi-literate or illiterate IMO
With all the challenges already facing Nigerians, we definitely don't need a generation of poor writers who can't determine when it's not appropriate to write text -speak.
Demonstrating good writing skills should be a basic aspiration for educated folks and you should know where text speak belongs if you must use it

Btw, I know I am not a perfect writer myself, but you won't find me using "nyc" for "nice"

What they fail to understand is that they are forming a habit and old habits die hard.

If a job applicant writes like that, that alone disqualifies him/her.

kombats: u 4got to add teachers among d list

we are saying its bad and this one is still doing one of what the OP is talking about! i.e typing ''u'' instead of ''you'', ''d'' instead of ''the'', ''4got'' instead of ''forgot''!

.

Truly the world is evolving but in my own opinion, our early lives in the 70s and 80s were much better than what we see today. am not against the use of cellphone and such-like gadgets by kids but am concerned about the behavioral attitude of today's kids. back in the days we never pass by an elder without greeting him or her, we never sit on a chair while an elder was standing, you don't dare collect a gift from an elder with one hand, left hand or even walk away with the gift without saying thank Sir. we were even handy and more creative than kids of nowadays, i can remember how we used to build houses with sand and clay, construct vehicles with empty tins of pick milk, construct kites and fly them high in the sky. today parents go to market and buy those toys for kids while they (the kids) sit in front of television and watch nollywood movies, next thing they start asking funny question like mummy what is this? and what is that?

ftmom: Number 5 soooooooo irks me
Sad that it seems most of them don't even realize that "proper writing" is not for exam scripts alone. It speaks to who you are, just like the way you dress and carry yourself. No offence, but writing in text speak can make you come across as semi-literate or illiterate IMO
With all the challenges already facing Nigerians, we definitely don't need a generation of poor writers who can't determine when it's not appropriate to write text -speak.
Demonstrating good writing skills should be a basic aspiration for educated folks and you should know where text speak belongs if you must use it

Btw, I know I am not a perfect writer myself, but you won't find me using "nyc" for "nice"

So on point.
I have a POLICY on my communication via BBM, Yahoo messanger or Facebook and that is "Don't dare chat with me using short forms". I have deleted and warned even very old folks and I am happy a whole lot of people avoid trying it with me.

Words like GM (Good morning), HML (happy married Life) and the whole rest never ever get a thank you response from me. I bring to their attention it is meaningless and as such I will ignore it.

I have come up with articles on how parents and the government can turn around things positively before they totally go bad but it seems everyone wants to be termed civilized.

I feel so sorry for this country in the next 5-10years thing would have totally gone bad.

Religious Studies, History and Social studies should be made compulsory in all level of the Education system (or at least from Nursary to senior secondary school) because it seens this generation is about to be totally consumed by stu*pidity and satanic minds.



e

freecocoa: And this your post makes sense to you? Hope you are not a parent sha.

Abi o. Ministry of parenting.

Op is right.granted each generation has its own problems.family institution is failing,more children are become rebellious,immorality is becoming rampant.though number of universities are increasing but standard of education is falling.most graduates are half-baked cos of poor quality of teaching,sex scandal and bribery in universities.even in usa,mass failure,cheating are now common in colleges.op tried to give reasons.many sociology researchers have said what op said.i am expecting a worst glocal society and total colapse of family life.

faithin9ja:



Rubbish!!!!

every generation believes the younger generation is in a worse position.
Just because you grew up without a television that means our children should not have a television?
The world is evolving, our parents, (I am almost 50) decried the fact we listened to hip hop & disco music. They didn't know shalamar, kool and the gang or public enemy, now my children listen to D'banj & P square. We watched videos, my children play video games, we read comics, now children are their own heroes in the comics (ie video games).

We all pretend to come from nuclear family - mummy, daddy and 3 to 5 children. Past generations made us believe that was the correct way, however in real life we all have half brothers and sisters. My mama pickin, my papa pickin, my papa wife, etc

When I was growing up there were 13 universities in Nigeria, now there are over 50 (albeit some of dubious quality)

The youth of today are the ones who are bring new technology and developments to society.

In my grandparents generation, the few who were encouraged to go to school, were encouraged to be teachers, court clerks and administrators. The next generation wanted their children to be doctors, lawyers or engineers, in the modern world we expect our children IT gurus, entertainers, top sports people, even a top newscaster.

So stop knocking the youth, the world is changing

pro01:

It is becoming a national embarrassment. Sometime ago, I marked a couple of exam scripts at the behest of a lecturer friend of mine in one of these fledgling bread and butter private universities, and I was appalled to see university students using "text-speak" abbreviattions so freely. . . ."d", "sth", "4", "xteristics", etc. My goodness! In an examination? It was especially bad towards the end of the scripts; I reckon the students were rushing to beat the submission deadline and had to resort to almost exclusive use of abbreviations in their answers. Needless to say I had a migrane after that ordeal. If I had my way I would have failed all of them, but my friend pointed out that he was obliged to ensure that they passed, otherwise his job might be on the line. Yet these half-baked nitwits would graduate in "flying colours" and get decent jobs ahead of better qualified candidates - because of their family connections and whatnot. This country is a huge joke.

You are burning my chest,so it's people like you that take pleasure in failing student.Haba you yourself said why they did is probably bcoz they are trying to beat the time and still yet,you still wished to fail them..And you were talking about them buying their sucess with money,it's not as if they don't know it,they only made some mistakes by abbreviating some of their words and also, do you think federal or state universities student don't abbreviate?.
Bottom line,people like you should be added to one of the reasons student fail unnecessarily(Teacher s that fail student for no cogent reason).

faithin9ja:



Rubbish!!!!

every generation believes the younger generation is in a worse position.
Just because you grew up without a television that means our children should not have a television?
The world is evolving, our parents, (I am almost 50) decried the fact we listened to hip hop & disco music. They didn't know shalamar, kool and the gang or public enemy, now my children listen to D'banj & P square. We watched videos, my children play video games, we read comics, now children are their own heroes in the comics (ie video games).

We all pretend to come from nuclear family - mummy, daddy and 3 to 5 children. Past generations made us believe that was the correct way, however in real life we all have half brothers and sisters. My mama pickin, my papa pickin, my papa wife, etc

When I was growing up there were 13 universities in Nigeria, now there are over 50 (albeit some of dubious quality)

The youth of today are the ones who are bring new technology and developments to society.

In my grandparents generation, the few who were encouraged to go to school, were encouraged to be teachers, court clerks and administrators. The next generation wanted their children to be doctors, lawyers or engineers, in the modern world we expect our children IT gurus, entertainers, top sports people, even a top newscaster.

So stop knocking the youth, the world is changing

Much as i want to agree with your stand,im afraid you are only highlighting the positive side to the so called civiliztion. The poster is looking at the negatives and how it affects our future generations. Especially as it seems to encroach on the morals and key values that our children need in the formative years to grow into responsible adults

OP you are so on point (excuse the pun)the fact that you have recognised that something is wrong tells me that you are very observant and intelligent.

The fact of the matter is that we live in an age now where young people are being targeted by the media at an unprecedented level. This is no coincidence, neither is it something that is unique to nigeria, this is also happening all over the western industrialised countries as well. The objective is to distract the future generation and keep them focused on irrelevancies and trivia rather than focusing on productive activities that can actually enable them to understand how their govts and the world work. Many young people today are so ignorant that many know nothing beyond the garbage that is spewed out by these junk tv channels that seem to have mysteriously proliferated in the last 15 years. As you have correctly noticed the craze now is for talent shows, reality tv, endless and mindless music videos - in short what you have now is the celebration and deification of banality, stup.idity, sex.ual promiscuity, ignorance and foolish.ness on a level never before seen. this is all going to create a generation of brain dead imbe.ciles whose sole preoccupation in life will be enjoyment with no hope or vision of how to survive in a world which is rapidly becoming more and more cut throat.

If you look at countries that have sheilded their indigenes from western influences like China, Iran and many islamic countries you will find that the moral fibre of their societies is still intact, what you have in nigeria is a complete saturation of our air waves with western imported junk which is going to be our downfall. Why are our youths more interested in singing competitions and reality shows than research and technology? Why are our youths politically ignorant when they live on a continent that is currently under US and european military occupation via USafricom? why is it that our youths do not understand what neo colonialism is when most african govts spend more on debt servicing than they spend on health care or education?

I remember reading on a south african website some months back that DSTV (which by the way is run and owned by white south africans) was set up to numb and dumb down the minds of young black south africans to ensure that they would never become as politically aware as their parents, in doing so this new generation of politically ignorant young people would become harmless robots who would never ever become a threat to europe or america(their masters), i can now see how prescient that statement was because all i see on these numerous african tv channels are an endless supply of talent shows, beauty contests, reality shows ad nauseam.

People please wake up lest this upcoming generation end up worse off than their parents whose lives have already been destroyed as a result of the economic enslavement by europe and america.

ftmom: Number 5 soooooooo irks me

Btw, I know I am not a perfect writer myself, but you won't find me using "nyc" for "nice"

And there I was, thinking "nyc" stood for New York City.

I am finished. I clearly cannot survive with the New World Order.