* Varsity students, dons explain why the Chinese education model cannot work in Nigeria

By Chika Abanobi

You did all you could to prepare for the test or exam. Read up what you considered relevant topics. Consulted books, documents and mimeographs. Then something unexpected happened. Something you never bargained for. And, because of that, you were unable to give the test or exam your best shot.

A few days or weeks later, the result was out and you discovered that you did not quite make the grade you had in mind. You needed some points to make up. But alas, there’s nowhere or nobody to borrow that from.

If you have not passed through this kind of experience as a student, then you probably know somebody somewhere who had. Relax! The Chinese have discovered the way out of the dilemma. And, from Nigeria to Namibia, Cameroon to Comoros, people are excited about it.

How the grades bank works

It is called “grades bank” and this is how it works: the innovative “bank” allows students to borrow marks to make up for a failing grade in any exam. But like regular banks, it requires them to pay back the loan on time, with interest. This they do by sitting for and scoring extra points in future exams. Students who default on their “loans” are blacklisted by the bank, just like in real life.

It is only three months since the pilot scheme kicked off at Nanjing No. 1 High School, Nanjing, capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province, in November 2016, but it has started attracting worldwide attention. Said to be the home of education in southern China for more than 1700 years, today the province boasts of 75 institutions of higher learning.

World-famous ones among them include China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing Sport Institute, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing City Vocational College, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics and Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.

Thirteen students of Nanjing No. 1 High School have, so far, borrowed marks from the “grades bank” with the intention of paying back any time this year. “I was sick before the mid-term exams and missed several geography classes,” one of the students named Zhu said. “I failed the exam, so I am glad the ‘grades bank’ gave me a chance to fix that.”

Mei Hong, physics teacher with the high school, told Yangtze Evening Post, one of Chinese evening papers, that the grades bank is designed to offer pupils a second chance. “59 points and 60 points are actually not that different,” she said. “But because the former means failing the exam while the latter means passing, the difference weighs heavily on students’ psyches. So instead of failing the exam, the student can just borrow that 1 point required to pass, as long as they agree to pay it back, with interest.”

Only time will tell whether it is eureka or not as far as exam scores and grading are concerned, but in Nigeria, students and teachers who read about it are convinced that even if it eventually works in China and the rest of the world, it will never work here.

Why we don’t want it in Nigeria – students

“Nigeria is not China,” Miss Aurelia Nnebunne Okonkwo, 400 level student of Human Physiology, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Gregory University, Uturu, Abia State, argues. “China has developed for good in many aspects than Nigeria. China surely had conducted meaningful and proper researches in education before adopting the ‘grades bank’ phenomenon.”

“China has a rigid government that can enact policies to support such system whereas in Nigeria the case is so different and backward because education is punished with stunted growth as the government does not care if students want to learn or even excel in their academic fields,” Miss Goodness U. Chijioke, 400 level student of Botany, Faculty of Bio Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, notes.

“I don’t think it can work in Nigeria because it will be easier for students to bribe their way out of failure,” Miss Deborah Adebola Dada, 200 level student of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Oyo State, says, in agreement with the opinions expressed by Okonkwo and Chijioke. She adds: “it will only promote laziness whereby students will find it difficult to read and scale through difficult courses.”

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Miss Stephanie Chekwube Ezeonye, diploma student of pharmacy, University of Lagos (UNILAG) and Mr. Nicholas Nnadozie, Masters degree student of English Language, Faculty of Arts, Lagos State University (LASU), who revealed that he had, in his undergraduate days, the kind of experience described at the beginning of this news feature and wished that the grades bank phenomenon had been there then at his service, share the same views with other students. 

“I don’t think I will want to recommend it because Nigerian students will abuse such privilege and, in the long run, defeat the aim for which it was instituted,” Ezeonye tells The Sun Education. “It won’t work. So, if at the end of the day, you are not able to make the score you desired, it is your luck.”

Nnadozie, who his course-mates fondly call ‘Nichchomsky’ (coined from the fusion of his first name, Nicholas, and Chomsky) because of his uncanny interest in and mastery of linguistics theories of Avram Noam Chomsky, the world-acclaimed American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, political activist, and author of seminal works like Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar (1966), The Sound Pattern of English  and Language and Mind (1968), strongly believes that, as ennobling as the innovation is, it cannot work in Nigeria for the same reason other students rejected it: the cheating nature of our people.

“We still have not been able to deal with ordinary exam malpractices though some schools claim to have done that,” he remarks, “not to talk of now borrowing grades which requires monitoring, putting some structures in place for proper accountability in terms of loaning marks to students which they have to pay back with interest. We still have a lot of work to do in terms of getting our education system into place before we can think of implementing such here.”

Why it cannot work here – Lecturers

Some lecturers consulted by The Sun Education agree with the students. “That is madness,” Dr. Olugbenga Toyosi Owolabi, a senior lecturer in the Department of Journalism, School of Communication, Lagos State University (LASU), says before following it up with series of questions that operators of the system at Nanjing No. 1 High School will, probably, find difficult to answer.

“How on earth can a failed student borrow marks to augment his/her shortcoming in an exam?” he asks. “If a student is found to perform below expected standard, why not allow the student to repeat that exam instead of a dubious way of pushing him through at all costs? What happens if a student fails in all the courses? Does it mean he will borrow to make up in all? What happens if it turns out that he cannot make up in subsequent exams as to pay back? What happens too, if that is his last exam in school before going to other ventures? It is a policy deliberately designed to create laziness in students. Once a student knows that he can easily find his way around weak academic performances by turning to “wonder bank” to borrow marks, there will be no urge to study harder.”

“My worry here is that our students have a culture of not being serious with their studies,” Dr. Bede-Blaise Chukwunyere Onwuagboke, Chief Lecturer/Reader, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education (AIFCE), Owerri, observes. “To loan them such grades, how sure is the system to be able to make them repay? Students can loan and disappear for forever; you will never see them again. So that is the problem, unless, of course, there will be in-built mechanism to make sure that whoever had borrowed must be made to pay in time too, especially if he is faced with the penalty of being blacklisted. If you give it to a final year student and you say you are blacklisting the person, you have already graduated the person. So, is there any mechanism in place to recall such a person’s certificate if the person fails to repay? These are modalities that can be worked out if any institution wants to adopt it.”

“With the present downturn in the economy, there is the tendency that people in the system, especially lecturers and non-academic staff, will be compromised, one way or the other,” Dr. Andrew Donatus Abue, Senior Lecturer, Anatomical Sciences, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Abuja (UNIABUJA), argues. “The possibility is there that many lecturers would capitalize on the system to fail students to make sure they commit them to borrowing marks. With that, students would like to bribe their way not to be borrowing. If we adopt this system, people would begin to think of how to outsmart it. I tell you students who owe some marks will go behind, pay the non-academic staff some money, collect their certificates and escape. I don’t think we should go into that until we get it right in terms of data collection and profiling.”

How to make it work

But Emmanuel Boluwatife Jeremiah, 200 level student, Department of Mass Communication, Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State, counsels against throwing the baby away with the bath water. He believes that, with some fine-tuning, we can adopt the system here.

“It is important to know that ideas or innovations brought up by individuals or organizations as regards the progress and improvement of the education system of a society should be welcomed,” he notes. “Nigeria’s education sector is yet improving, hence it’s important that measures which can positively improve it be put in place. The grades bank can help students become better in personal areas of expertise and also helps them to improve academically. Psychologically speaking, it could help to reduce the tension caused by failure and aid proactive stimulation of the human brain towards hard work in future. I know of a student who couldn’t attain first class degree just because of one point. If this academic lifeline had been available at the time of the incidence, it would have helped that student to achieve his goal.”

Despite their observations and criticisms, Nnadozie, Drs. Onwuagboke and Abue believe that the adoption of the education innovation could bring in some benefits for us if we can put some measures in place.

While Nnadozie feels we could start our own pilot scheme with those private universities which boast of having international standards, Onwuagboke who teaches microteaching and educational technology to NCE (Nigerian Certificate in Education) and first degree students, respectively, thinks if it becomes necessary to adopt, we should limit it to “final degree or NCE level or any level where a student is supposed to graduate, and maybe requires one, two or three points. And such a student should be the type that is serious with his studies. If there is something like grades bank, I think it will help the student.”

“We need a total societal orientation,” Dr. Abue who teaches gross anatomy to 200 and 300 level and comparative anatomy to post-graduate students, suggests. “If at all we have to start, we will need to give it some time until we are ready, not now.”

Dr. Owolabi who teaches journalism and communication studies at undergraduate, masters and doctorate levels, would prefer that Nigerian education policymakers and curriculum planners have nothing to do with the platform. “That policy can easily turn ‘marks’ to traded commodity between students and teachers,” he warns. “It is a policy that will further worsen the case of exam malpractices in our country where corruption has crept into every facet of our lives. There is no point borrowing marks. In fact, it should remain a closed chapter, a no-go area.”