The Vice-Principal, Issa Williams Memorial High School, Iponri, Lagos, Mr. Nasiru Sulayman, on Friday blamed the mass failure of students in examinations on the poor use of textbooks, especially in core subjects.

Sulayman told newsmen in Lagos that most students failed woefully in external examinations because of the lack of textbooks to prepare adequately.

“It is difficult for students to excel in public examinations, especially in the core subjects such as Mathematics and English when they do not have the textbooks.

You do not just attend classes without reference materials and expect to do well in an examination”, he said.

Sulayman stated that if mass failure must be curbed, the best thing to do would be to ensure that students have the required books to prepare for their examinations.

The educationist urged parents to always provide their children with textbooks and other learning materials to motivate them to excel.

Apart from providing books, he also urged parents to monitor their children’s schedules to ensure that they read their books regularly.

The vice-principal also said that the provision of up-to-date books in school libraries would give students more access to quality textbooks and encourage a reading culture among them.

Sulayman advised the government to stock school libraries with books and build community libraries as a means of improving students’ performance in public examinations.

According to him, there is also the need to improve the teacher-student ratio in schools to make teaching and learning more effective, as well as improve students’ performance in public examinations.

He said that teachers had had to contend with an overwhelming number of students in their classes, a situation, he said, had affected performance.

The vice-principal advised school administrators to help address the problem by employing more teachers and expanding infrastructure.