₦airaland Forum

Right. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a racialist or someone who believes in intrinsic racial/ethnic superiority.

All I am saying is that, there is a solid chance that one group in particular is going to outperform its population in Nigeria, if this is done purely by merit.

Eh. People say all sorts of nonsense on NL. Someone earlier today told me that the SS's population is 20 million.

I am a man of hard facts, not of sentiment and hearsay on NL

I await the conclusion of your investigation, though.

Bayo: If someone presents you with two students, one who did 150 on his JAMB, the other who did 180, and asks you which one did better in college, and then points a gun at your head, saying that he will shoot you if you don't get the right answer, what will you do?

You certainly will not flip a coin. In the absence of any other information, you'll pick the 180 student.

Post-UTME is still a good thing since there is probably a much stronger correlation between performance on it and doing well in college.

But that doesn't mean that JAMB is uncorrelated.

Anyway, I understand what you mean now by "uncorrelated", you mean in the informal sense, not the technical sense.

Bayo, I get your point. Cheating weakens the correlation. But it doesn't make it zero, does it?

If I had access to the full dataset, I'd check the following things:

1) how reasonable is this normality assumption
2) what are the average JAMB results by zone
3) what are the variances by zone

And publish more detailed threshold results. How many by zone got above 190, 200, 210, 250, etc?

But like I said, I'm pretty that the cutoffs for 190, 200, etc will look similar to those for 170 and 180.

Beaf: http://www.speakersoffice.gov.ng/news_may_22_09_1.htm

Isn't the SS a lot bigger than the ND? Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Edo...

PhysicsQED: Perhaps my comment was a bit vague or unclear. What I mean is, a few percent difference in numbers of barely competent or barely mediocre students produced between states is unlikely to translate into a significant difference in either the quantity or quality of the few very highest achieving students produced between states.

If:

1) Higher thresholds of 170/180 suggests higher mean for distribution in population A than in population B
2) Normality is a reasonable assumption for this type of data.
3) Similar variances.

Then:
Yes, it is safe to say that there will be differences at the top ends.

How reasonable is it to assume that (1)-(3) are true?

(2) is a standard assumption that people make with this sort of data.
(1) I cannot conclude that this is true w/o access to the full data. But it seems pretty likely to be true.
(3) I don't know, since I don't have access to the full dataset.

So you are correct, technically I cannot say anything above the higher end of this distribution until I know (1) and (3) for sure. However, I suspect this to be true, personally.

2) When one is talking about IQ or SAT, it seems clear that there are already large/significant differences in achievement between certain populations when it comes to numbers of average or below average performers to begin with. This does not seem to be the case here.

1. I don't understand your first statement.
2. How did you come to the conclusion that there isn't a large difference?

above was directed at bayo (in case it wasn't clear)

I mean correlation in a precise, mathematical sense. I think that you are using it in a looser sense.

If you have a link to any of these surveys handy, I'd be interested in taking a look at which sense they mean.

PhysicsQED: I'm not sure you have enough information to assume that it would, really. At the level of say getting 320+ or whatever is considered a high score, the number of people will be so few that it's unlikely that a significant difference would exist based on edging out other states by a few percent in numbers of barely competent or barely average students.

It depends on what assumptions I'm allowed to make. People typically assume normality (or approximate normality) for things like exam results, IQ, SAT, etc. So assuming that I'm allowed to make these standard assumptions that everyone else does, then yes, it does follow.

By the way, and this may be a silly question or something that should be obvious, what does column c represent in the spreadsheet you posted? Are columns f and d supposed to add up (along with the numbers from other cutoffs) to equal column c?

The data was sourced from those links I posted earlier. So almost all of your questions can be answered by comparing the two. Column C is the total # taking, per state.

If indeed the total population of SS indigenes in Nigeria is 20 million out of a country of ~170 million or so, then yes, the SS is by far the most impressive region educationally both on a per capita PASS rate perspective, as well as a per capita TAKE rate perspective.

But somehow, I suspect that you are just making the number up. In any case, doesn't really matter too much...I think my point has been made abundantly clear.

Out of curiosity, are you ever going to provide a reference/citation for those claim that most of the top scorers on JAMB come from those states you mentioned?

bayooooooo: JAMB scores are great but don't translate to making a first class. In fact, there is no good correlation between JAMB scores and performance in the university.

This I would find surprising if true. Perhaps weaker correlation than one might expect. But zero correlation? That seems implausible to me.

My rough guess of the Yoruba population in Nigeria is ~40 million or so. Some of these are from Kwara and Kogi. So let's say ~32-35 million SW indigenes?

I don't think that the SS is that far behind, population-wise. Akwa Ibom is a very populated state. So is Rivers. So is Delta. Bayelsa is relatively unpopulated. Edo is pretty populated. Cross Rivers as well.

So it isn't entirely clear to me that we have massively, massively higher population in the SW zone (indigenes, mind you, not residents).

Here is the table of interest, btw:

https://i50.tinypic.com/a1pfk6.png

Is the population of SS indigenes truly much less than that of SW indigenes, as Beaf seems to be suggesting?

Beaf: Per capita is the key phrase you should be looking out for. I noticed in your only link I looked at, that the SS had about the same number of JAMB applications as the SW, whereas we certainly lag far behind in terms of population.

By your own figures, your claims are false.

1. You seemed to have missed my other question earlier. I asked, where is this reference claiming that the top JAMB test takers were from any of the states you mentioned?
2. What is the relative population of the SS zone indigenes relative to SW zone indigenes? Is it truly far less that of the SW zone?

PhysicsQED: Thanks for the links. Anyway, I don't think that for the best few students in a country what you posted about barely passing to barely average scores on jamb will be particularly relevant. There will likely be little difference between groups in the south at the more high achieving end.

Granted, the spreadsheet only looks at cutoffs of 170 and 180 (iirc, other cutoffs weren't handy).

But I think that it is safe to say that one distribution has a higher mean than the other (at least, assuming that something perverse isn't happening).

Therefore, the trend is likely to persist at higher thresholds.

1. I've not seen anything in previous years suggesting that the highest scores come from any of those states you mention. Can you provide a reference backing this up? E.g., average JAMB performance per zone?
2. For the year referenced above, your statement is false. The highest JAMB pass rate was in the SW. 87.73% getting above a 170 in the SW, 84.29% in the SE, 81.58% in the SE.

When did you get married?!?!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NIgerianWorldForum/message/132321
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asaba/message/13577
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NigerDeltaForum/message/3138

This wasn't the particular forum I read it on initially, but the above contains the same information (or most of it, anyways).

I'll see if I can dig it up.

Data structures lecturer doesn't know what a hash table is? lol

Your best bet then is to learn data structures online then. Grab some video lectures from one of the western universities, use that to learn.

Xtfield: I am surprised at the level of ignorance and illiteracy being displayed on Nairaland these days. I fail to see how Governor Fashola is to blame for the fate of the driver in this story. Fashola did not arrest the man, the police did. Fashola did not order his prosecution, the police did this in accordance with the traffic laws of Lagos state. Fashola did not send the man to jail, a magistrate did. and there is no mention of the fact that the governor ordered the driver sent to jail. For all I know, the man committed multiple offences, one of which was that he had no driver's license. This alone is enough to warrant a punishment. But the driver made his case worse by pleading "not guilty" thereby prolonging his trial. His plea was what led to a bail being posted. He was sent to jail because he could not perfect his bail. So, in all these, where did the governor go wrong? For being on the road at the time the driver used his truck to block the road thereby inconveniencing all other road users, including the governor? Or because the governor was on the road on the day the driver chose to drive without being in possession of a driver's license? And someone made reference to the sacked doctors. Again, Fashola never sacked the doctors. He did not appoint them, Lagos State Hospital management Commission did. The doctors were issued queries by their employers, which they refused to reply to and their employers - Lagos State Hospital Management Commission terminated their appointment for utter disregard for constituted authority. And I dare say if any employee in my employ refuses to reply to a query, I would not hesitate to sack him. So in all this where did Fashola go wrong? Let us stop personalizing government and issues. we should not just take delight in slighting those in authority. They may be there today, it may be your turn or mine tomorrow. Whatever you plant, you will surely reap. I rest my case.

+100

NLers are too sentimental and emotional

So TA Orji obviously has some staffers whose job is to spam NL with propaganda.

hilarious

lmao

Beaf: JAMB scores do not bear this out.
Rather, it would tilt toward Delta, Anambra, Imo and Rivers; those are the real powerhouses of performance and statistics bears that claim out.

https://www.nairaland.com/725471/2011-jamb-utme-data-state

In particular, look at the statistics of those getting above 170 on JAMB by zone.

This suggests that SW indigenes perform better on average on at least this particular standardized exam than other people do.

Thanks for the updates.

Akwa Ibom

oduasolja: 70 percent of them will be yoruba , mark my words

70% is too high. But if pure merit, a disproportionate # of these brainy students will be Yoruba.

Edoyad has (mostly) hit the nail on the head.

Management should also not sign any leases longer than 3 years.

More flexibility in increasing rents and fees is always a welcome thing.

As I said earlier. It is good to be an OWNER of the land, rather than a tenant

If the World Bank is willing to provide this loan at a good interest rate, and the money is used for a good purpose, then there is nothing wrong with this.