Stakeholders in the education sector have been urged to take collective responsibility to rid the country of bad habits of wanting to cut corners during examinations.
The Registrar, National Examination Council (NECO), Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi, made the appeal at a One-Day Sensitisation Workshop on Examination Malpractice in Abuja on Friday.
The workshop has the theme: “The Role of Education Stakeholders in Tackling Examination Malpractices in Nigeria.”
According to him, one of the biggest challenges bedelvling the conduct of public examinations now is the issue of examination malpractice.
” No doubt, examination malpractice has the tendency to discourage hard work among serious students, it lowers educational standards, discredits certificates earned and leads to the production of quacks, thereby affecting manpower needs of the nation.
” We must,therefore, take collective responsibility to rid them of this bad habit of wanting to cut corners,” he said.
Also speaking, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education, Sen.Ibrahim Geidam, said that if the menace of examination malpractices was not addressed, it could completely rub the education system of its credibility.
Geidam, who was represented by the Vice-Chairman of the committee, Sen. Akon Eyakenyi, said that stakeholders had the task to rescue the system from the threshold of examination malpractice.
” Examination for all is the responsibility of all, we must rise to the challenges of arresting the monster.
” MDAs should wake up to their responsibilities in the areas of monitoring, managers of education should effectively deploy reward system to encourage hard work.
” Also, law enforcement and anti-grant agencies should continue to lend their helping hands and support the fight against examination malpractices,” she said.
Geidam also charged the media to playing its role of beaming the searchlight on perpetrators of examination malpractices, while also calling on the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to carry out sensitisation awareness to villages across the country.
Meanwhile, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Basic and Secondary Education, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, called for severe sanctions on institutions found culpable of examination malpractices.
Ihonvbere said that it was time to control the menace saying that if not checked, the country would continue to breed crooks that would eventually sell the country in future.
He, therefore, advised examination bodies to control examinations through proper monitoring in the villages saying that examination personnel often connive with school authorities in the villages to commit malpractices.
Dr Aminu Wushishi of the Education Foundations Unit, Faculty of Education and Arts, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) University, Lapai, in a paper presentation, said that parents, students, school principals, proprietors of private schools and government had contributed to the menace.
Wushishi said that some parents used to pay people to sit for examinations on behalf of their children as well as bribing supervisors/ invigilators to write examinations for their children.
He, therefore, called on examination bodies such as NECO to work in harmony with school administrators and proprietors on disciplinary measures.
He also urged the National Assembly to widen the areas of jurisdiction of ICPC and EFCC to fight cases of examination malpractice in Nigeria, while also calling on NECO to deploy ICT or use its CBT platform to give integrity and acceptability to its examinations.