Awareness and Implementation of WAEC and NECO Chief Examiners' Reports in Teaching Biology in Jos South, Plateau State, Nigeria.

Abstract

This paper was prompted by evidences of persistent under-achievement of Biology students in external examinations vis-a-vis the existence of the annual reports of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO) Chief examiners. The research was under taken to investigate the “Awareness and implementation of WAEC and NECO chief examiners’ reports in teaching biology in Jos-South, Plateau State, Nigeria”. The descriptive survey design was adopted. The population for the study comprised all biology teachers in Jos-South Local Government Area. With the Biology Teachers Implementation of WAEC and NECO Questionnaire (BTIWNQ) which had a reliability coefficient of 0.97 obtained by using the Cronbach Alpha method, all 37 biology teachers (22males, 15 females) who constituted the sample were administered the 11 –item questionnaire. The study found that, though majority (54.1%) of the teachers were aware of the WAEC reports, only 6 (16.2) teachers implemented the recommendations. For NECO reports, 37.8% were aware of the reports and only 4 (10.8%) implemented its recommendations. The paper concludes that, the lack of implementing these reports could be the reason for the persistent poor performance of biology students in external examinations. The Federal and State ministries of education in collaboration with principals and proprietors of schools should enforce purchase of the reports and also monitor its implementation by teachers. This way, performance of biology students could improve.