Scholars Condemn Call to Make English, Maths Optional for Admissions

Hammed Shittu

The President of the English Scholars Association of Nigeria (ESAN), Prof. Shola Babatunde, has condemned the call to stop making a credit pass in English and Mathematics a requirement to enter universities and polytechnics.

The Registrar of the National Examinations Council (NECO), Prof. Dantani Wushishi, recently advocated that credits in English Language and Mathematics should no longer be required for admission into higher institutions.

Prof. Wushishi stated this at the 2021 Biennial National Conference of the Association of Model Islamic Schools in Minna, Niger State.

But, Babatunde, while speaking at the 37th annual national conference of ESAN tagged ‘KWARESAN 2021’, at the main auditorium of the University of Ilorin, described the comment as ludicrous, adding that such a move will not promote effective language communication.

He said the call was unfortunate as students grapple with good communication skills and the use of the language.
Babatunde suggested creating a ‘National English Studies Resource Centre’ to carry out studies on the National English corpus and implement relevant policies.

“The emphasis should be on the improvement of the facilities and the training and employment of adequate number of teachers to teach the two subjects in order to minimise failure rates,” said the University of Ilorin don.
He noted that the forum of scholars would collate and store for ease of retrieval all research efforts on the English Language in Nigeria.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Prof. Sulyman Age Abdulkareem, who declared the conference open, noted that since the country’s lingua franca is English, moving a mountain becomes easy for students if they could put words together appropriately.