On April this year, the Nigeria Examination Committee (NEC) of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) took a far reaching decision to blacklist 113 secondary schools across the nation for their involvement in examination malpractices as a measure to restore examination ethics. As part of its zero tolerance to exams sharp practices, the WAEC also cancelled results of 30, 654 candidates, who sat for the May/June 2012 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in addition to the cancellation of individual subject results of 83, 745 candidates.
While it released the results of 1, 549 out of 112, 000 previously withheld from 1, 695, 878 candidates that sat for May/June 2012 WASSCE, it barred for two years 3, 321 candidates from sitting for the council examination over misconduct during the school exam, in line with the rules and regulations guiding the conduct of the examination. It should be recalled that only 38.81 per cent (649, 156) of the total candidates that sat for the May/June 2012 WASSCE obtained five credits in English Language, Mathematics and three other subjects, thus were qualified for admissions into universities and polytechnics.
The committee also warned 465 secondary schools for aiding and abetting examination malpractice during the 2012 May/June WASSCE, granted clemency to eight candidates, withdrew the certificates of 12 others after they asked for restitution and directed that the allegations against 930 candidates be further investigated, while their results are withheld. NEC also sanctions 97 supervisors/principals/other examination personnel and blacklisted 21 supervisors formerly indicted.
A breakdown of schools sanctioned nationwide puts South-South on top of the chart, followed by the Northern region, South East and South West. Government-owned schools top the list of those involved in exam fraud. The NEC arrived at the decision after evidences produced by the council which were seized from the candidates could not be refuted.
The revelation by WAEC did not come as a surprise to spectators of current trend in our schools. The blacklisting and other sanctions that accompanied it are long overdue. One will even say that the committee was not exhaustive in its oversights. WAEC did not name its men among the personnel who aid malpractices; the parents and mercenaries who sponsor and are hired to do this are neither sanctioned nor prosecuted; and lastly, no school in Ebonyi state is blacklisted where 113 schools are involved. Are these oversights or deliberate? Either way, they blur the entire effort.
One admits that passing examinations is more important than acquiring knowledge because Nigeria exhorts bogus certificate above ability to perform. Nigerians are certificate-maniacs. It is not rare to see people who never entered classroom- okada riders, businessmen, and mechanics- trooping into schools each year to register for SSCE and eventually coming out with flying colours. Candidates employ all sorts of tactics including kidnapping an invigilator with support of their parents and school authorities to pass exams.
Principals are the chief organizers of examination malpractices, collecting money from students to smoothen the process. The Intelligent students who fail to comply with malpractice payment are denied of their freedom to write, ridiculed and forced to join the rest. Sometimes, they are rebuffed and deliberately made to fail the exams to deter their like from such ‘unpatriotic act’. Parents on their side keep switching admissions for their wards just to find fertile schools for malpractices, inaccessible to exams syndicates. School proprietors run schools like empire with anointing of powers that be or examination bodies. There is an upsurge of special or miracle centres where people make their papers at one sitting as long as one fulfils one’s financial obligation.
The rapid unemployment in the country has turned every unemployed graduates and their undergraduate into mercenaries, using period of exams to eke out living. Most at times, these mercenaries are not better than those they come to help. The system is such that getting mercenaries has ceased to make any difference as everybody is the same. The introduction of Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) does not help matters either. Taking electronic materials into examination hall has become a common place but it is amazing that students don’t even know the correct spelling of words because social sites have corrupted their spelling abilities. Girls who take advantage of fleshes at their proper places to hide materials have also tale of bitterness. For how long will calculate or handset set in human sacred areas with their health implications? The misconducts are everywhere because they are signs of confusion.
The misconducts rather than vilify students indict bodies responsible for learning of wrongdoing. Let us look at our learning system, the factories that bake students. One is as good as the system that formed him/her. Nigeria’s learning environments and all their methods and equipment are entirely wrong, far from standards. How can one stay in three years in secondary school with neither English nor mathematics teacher? Make-belief laboratories are set up only during exams after students have been painfully taxed. The school with no sitting arrangement tries to do that during exams. Every method we see in our school is a step to ignorance.
It is regrettable, therefore, that schools receive attentions only during exams. Nobody cares how learning goes in our different schools. We are not interested in correcting a system that makes student lazy and ignorant. Rather we want to see them make mistake because we already anticipate their fall. Supervisors visit schools only when they will get money from poor students who are ready to pay through their nose to ensure they clear their papers.
I am not an advocate of cheating. I have seen victims of mediocre professionals in health sector, the trauma their victims passed through because of wrong diagnosis. Exam malpractice is the easiest way to groom mediocre. As we indict students, we expose the hypocrisy of government and examination bodies. It is a known fact that examination bodies fail students to gain them back at next time. For instance, out of the 1, 735, 720 that sat for last UTME conducted by JAMB, the FG said only 520, 000 will get their slots in Nigeria universities. What will the rest do? Write again! Few years ago, WAEC cancelled some subjects after they have been taken because their men leaked them out. Were students responsible? What of their men who accept money to write good reports and incriminate those who fail to comply? The list is endless.
When we want to correct a system, we go to the root. Nigerians are cheats. Every Nigerian is implicated in the WAEC’s blacklist and sanctions including the body itself. When WAEC blacklists like this, it insults government too.
