I start this piece with a quote from Professor
Michael Omolewa (2007) who stated that “Educational reforms emanate from the
basic conviction that considerable progress can be made  in the nation by its people through careful
engineering all of the educational process” .

Whether our reforms have been able to achieve
considerable progress with all the various engineering of the educational
process is a matter we could review another day. My tilt here is the fact that
whatever re-engineering process to be done would work better when all stake-
holders recognise that it is a task of everyone from the family unit to the
country which includes the education experts agencies, ministries etc saddled
with the responsibility of carrying out the tasks.

An exemplary re-engineering was witnessed on the 10th of
November during the entrance examination into the Nne Kurubo Model School,
Eleme, written by many across various classes.

Exclusive for obvious reasons, are students in the  examination classes.Personally being
an education enthusiast and one who appreciates the beauty of any justifiable
process, also, with so many known people participating in the exam, it was
paramount to have a first hand experience of what the process would be like.

Arrving at the Rivers State College of Arts and Science
where the exams for entry into Junior Secondary School One was to be written,
the first things that catch your eyes are the anxious faces of parents running
in different directions, some unsure of the expected process and others
searching frantically for either proposed examination halls for their wards or
location for local government or simply just searching for examination numbers
for their wards.

In view of an examination proposed for 9’am,these
preliminary activities took the chunk of the better part of the morning. To
this, many expressed concern and others exasperated. Interesting cases included
parents who claimed to have examination numbers but no halls for the entrance,
others were on why the halls should be divided into Local Governments Areas.

Yet, another
included a man who wondered why the non-indigenes should be kept
separately as that may jeopardise their chances and so rather than concentrate
on his search for the appropriate exam hall, he went on with claims as to the
fact that he had stayed long enough in Port-Harcourt to be given a status as a
Port Harcourt Local Government Area (PHALGA) indigene.

Indeed,. Edu Corp, the organisers in collaboration with
the Rivers State Government would have surely gone through a rigorous process
of thinking through and if we recall their earlier statements, that the several
postponement of the examination dates in the first place was due to the fact
that flood and other challenges may have contributed to the low awareness
consequently, the poor submission of application forms from some local
government areas and if indeed balanced representation was to be achieved, this  cannot be overlooked. So more awareness was
done in this regard. This was the explanation I managed to give to the
infuriated man before he generally calmed down and sought the halls to which he
rightly belonged.

After these and more hiccups the next step witnessed the
organisers doing all humanly possible towards ensuring that no single parent or
custodian were found within or around the examination halls to ensure total
prevention of any influence of sorts. I and the team with us were literaly shifted
to one end of the compound to avoid being close to CAS 3 and 4 that hosted
wards from PHALGA and Obio Akpor Local Governments.

Now, with the arguments, the anxiety on hall searches
and more over, the exams finally started at 11.30am  for the proposed almost 3hrs exams. The kids
took 200 questions covering Mathematics, English, Basic Sciences and
Quantitative. All kids within these periods, worked totally independently after
the sealed exam papers were brought and distributed. Having eased up before the
exams no single child was allowed out of the hall besides the exceptional case
of a  little girl who was perhaps
intensely pressed.

On conclusion, a prayer by the invigilators was rendered
after which the children rose. Parents were asked not to overwhelm them and so
each child walked up their respective parents.

Throughout all the phases of the process, there was no
record of torn list, jumping through windows, cheating, parents calling out to
children in the halls like in a recent common entrance when some parents even
had the audacity to want to go into the exam hall to attempt to write for their
kids or send mercenaries!.

The orderliness and seeming obligation of the parents
and children to be at their best laid credence to the fact that we can get it
right as a nation especially if we started right by catching them young and
imbibe in them key values at an early age. Various parents after the exams
expressed the same sentiment making it obvious that in an 80percent ratio, any
child who succeeds in gaining a place in the school may indeed have done so
primarily with some element of merit. I know of many parents who, since they
barely had funds to pay for another secondary school refused their kids
entering any other school also because they had solid hopes on gaining entry to
Ambassador Nne Kurubo School. Indeed there was the category of parents who even
after the exams had started or ended, trooped in saying they missed their way,
or didn’t understand the instructions or came from a distant hinterland claiming
further that one of the “invigilators” told them there will be a “second
session”. Well, these things happen and just like the day people realise that
the phrase” Time” will soon be phased out, and a re branded sense of timing in
its place, “latecomers” to critical projects will continue to be found in
various pockets here and there.

I witnessed a public examination which saw kids …. who
confidently went in and came out saying to themselves, “I did the best I could
and would keep improving” and I knew that all hope cannot be lost in the
rebuilding of the education sector.

I enjoin the organisers not to relent at this point
because it is one thing to get the preparatory phases of a project up and
running like this, set the standards and another to maintain both standards,
quality and all that will go into placing a school like this at the fore, ahead
of others. It would require courage, determination, political will and
ultimately grace from God to make a name in a sector that has generally, nationwide
been considered as irredeemable, moribund or such. Yet, all these elements
required are available.

The world needs to see that quality education doesn’t
necessarily have to be back breaking expensive and of course poor and rich
alike have best brains amidst them. This tempo needs to be sustained by
relentlessly and continuously reviewing the plan of action. If we understand
that the children proposed for this first model school make up over 30per cent
of the states population, we will recognise that quite a sizable number will be
left unadmitted and these must find places where they can belong and continue
quality education unhindered.700 is just a fraction of the number that will not
have a chance to be taken at this time.

Ogbanga resides in
Port Harcourt