₦airaland Forum

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has blamed school owners for the increased rate of examination malpractice.

The Deputy Registrar, West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mrs Comfort Agwu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that examination malpractice would not succeed in schools without the knowledge of the school administrators.

The council accused some private school owners in the country of trafficking students illegally from one state to another for the purpose of writing the examination.

Mrs Agwu warned that the council would not hesitate to clamp down on schools that were involved in examination malpractice.

“We shall close down any school involved in malpractice in any form henceforth.

“That is why we are sparing time to educate school principals and proprietors on the evil effects of the malpractice,’’ she said.

Agwu also urged School principals to stop registering fake candidates or external candidates for WAEC examinations.

She claimed that some principals register candidates with defaced photographs with the intent of replacing the photographs after the examinations.

“This has caused delay in the issuance of certificates and the council will not tolerate this any longer,’’ she said.

Agwu also urged School owners to stop advertising their schools with the promise of assisting students to get distinctions in WAEC examinations.

“Great men of today did not make distinctions or credits in all the subjects at one sitting; our individual performance should have at least the normal curve.

“Some teachers go as far as writing the answers on the board for candidates in the examination hall while some photocopy answers for them.

“We have our spies in all the zones and there will be no escape route this time around for exam cheats,” the WAEC deputy registrar said.

Agwu urged school owners to report any supervisor who tries to intimidate or demand bribe from them to the council.

A school administrator, who pleaded anonymity, told NAN that the high cut-off marks by higher institutions was responsible for the malpractice.

“The demand for credits in one sitting in SSCE by higher institutions from students seeking admissions has contributed to examination malpractice
.
“If they allow two or more sittings, the desperation will not be there to get the credits or distinctions in one attempt,’’ he said
http://campusportalng.com/education/waec/waec-blames-school-owners-for-exam-malpractice/1071/

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has withheld a total of 47,289 candidate’s results representing 11.04% for various cases of examination malpractices.

The Head of the Nigeria National Office, WAEC, Mr. Charles Eguridu made this known at a news briefing in Lagos while announcing the release of its November/December 2012 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) result. He condemned the rising incidence of examination malpractices, adding that the various cases were being investigated and the reports of the investigations will be presented to the Nigerian Examinations Committee( NEC) for consideration.

In his words, “The incidence of examination malpractice must be checked at all cost if we expect our educational sector to regain not only its past glory, but also improve and compete with those of other nations. The decision will be communicated to the affected candidates through our zonal and branch offices.”

A break down of the result shows that a total of 413,266 candidates registered, but only 396,614 candidates sat for the examination.

Out of a total of 396,614 candidates consisting of 216,600 male and 180,014 female that sat for the examination, a total of 150, 615 candidates, representing 37.97% obtained credits in five subjects and above including English language and Mathematics.

The HNO who analysed candidates' performance in the November/December WASSCE from 2010 to 2012 , claimed that there has been an improvement in candidates performance which is due to assiduous efforts by teachers and parents to make sure that their children excel in the examinations.
In his words, “Contrary to what we used to experience in the past, candidates have been working harder to pass their examinations.

The WAEC Boss added that candidates can now check their results with scratch cards on the results checking website: www.waecdirect.org
http://campusportalng.com/education/waec-withholds-47289-results-for-exam-malpractices/983/

The Obafemi Awolowo University OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun State graduated no fewer than 78 first class degree holders at its 39th convocation ceremony held recently in the institution.

The Vice- Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Bamitale Omole, stated this on Thursday during the ceremony, which saw the conferment of 5, 249 first degrees and 3, 363 postgraduate degrees on students.

Mr. Omole while quoting from the latest Web-o-metric ranking, he affirmed that OAU ranked first in research among Nigerian universities, noting that the transparency, justice and integrity has been their watch word in the institution and will continue to be their guiding principles.

He said, “In furtherance to its claim as the number one IT university in Nigeria, OAU recently competed for and won a $2.7m Cloud Computing and Telepresence Facility. This achievement makes our university the only university in Nigeria with hi-tech facility.

“While other universities still use the iLab developed and made by MIT, OAU has developed her own iLab and this has helped us in solving some of the basic needs of experimentation.”

Omole however challenged the graduates to be steadfast and offer solutions to the challenges of life, assuring that the rigorous training by OAU will be very useful to the graduates in the nearest future.

“As graduates of Ife, we expect you to come up with innovative ideas in job creation and entrepreneurial
skills which will stand you in good stead in settling down quickly to making your marks in national development,”

The institution graduated 78 first class holders, 1,161 second class upper, 2,260 second class lower degrees and 877 third class degrees.

http://dailypost.com.ng/2012/12/18/78-first-class-students-graduate-oau/
http://campusportal.com.ng/oau/oau-graduates-78-first-class-students/971/

The 2013 Recruitment Application has commenced
http://campusportal.com.ng/na/nigerian-army-recruitment-application-form-69th-regular-recruits-intake-2013/937/

Nobel Laureate and human rights activist, Professor Wole Soyinka, on Thursday tagged private entities establishing educational institution for business as anti human.

Mr Soyinka said this at Ilara Mokin near Akure,Ondo State, during a facility tour of the Elizade University established by the Chairman of Toyota Nigeria Limited, Chief Michael Ade- Ojo.

He said those establishing educational institutions should not have the mindset of making profit but to assist the country in rebuilding the standard of the already collapsed educational sector.

“You cannot treat education like business. It’s not logical and it’s an anti-human policy. It is like the health sector which should be accessible to all regardless of one’s social status in the society.

“The educational system as you know very well in this country had collapsed a long time ago and I think that private initiative in the sector will help in raising, pulling upward, the standard which our generation enjoyed, and lead to the recovery of such standard as we had in the past.

“The crucial element of education which is standard need to be enhanced with an initiative like this which are genuinely, based on strategic planning because there are some private institution who are out to make money through education,” Prof. Soyinka said.

Commenting, the founder and Chairman of Toyota Nigeria Limited, Chief Michael Ade- Ojo affirmed that his utmost aim for establishing the institution was to take education to a higher level and to make sure that Nigerians who continue to send their wards out of the country for education due to the rotten sector are discouraged from doing so henceforth.

He noted that Nigerian students pay as much as $10,000 per session in Ghana, adding that what his institution is charging is far less than the world class facilities in his school.

“Very few universities in the country are equipped with infrastructure these days. My intention is to reverse the race to go overseas for education. It is surprising to know that we have a lot of Nigerians in Ghana now who pay at least a tuition fee of about $10, 000 per session.
http://campusportalng.com/education/soyinka-warns-against-establishing-schools-for-profit-making/924/

The Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN, have attributed partially the cause of the mass failure in various examinations for primary and secondary school students to youth corps members posted to teach without relevant qualifications.

The Director of Operations of the Council, Steve Nwokocha, made this known at the maiden induction/graduation of 118 Professional Diploma in Education graduates held at the Federal College of Education, Osiele, Abeokuta on Tuesday.

He advised authorities of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, to stop deploying corp members who lack basic teaching knowledge to schools, emphasizing that this act contributed to the mass failure witnessed in the country in recent years.
“The issue of having mass failure is a process. Part of the people contributing to the process are these corpers. It is an abuse to our profession.

“Government should stop posting youth corpers to teach in schools. We at the council are against posting of NYSC without teaching background to schools,” he said.

Nwokocha condemned the large number of youth corpers deployed to schools to teach, insisting that only graduates of education should be posted to schools to teach students.
http://campusportal.com.ng/education/nysc-education/nysc-members-cause-of-mass-examination-failure-in-nigeria-teachers-council/914/

2012/2013 Bayero University Kano BUK Admission List finally out and uploaded on school's website.
Details on the link below
http://campusportal.com.ng/buk/bayero-university-kano-buk-admission-list-2012-out-on-school-website/910/

In trying to check the increasing rate of malpractices among students writing its examinations, the National Examinations Council (NECO) has introduced the use of customised answer scripts.

The Registrar of the Council, Prof Promise Okplala, announced the introduction in Abuja on Tuesday. He explained that the customised answer scripts would tackle the challenge of hoarding of remnants of answer scripts by Exam invigilators.

He said such ‘left over scripts’ are then sold by the supervisors to fraudsters who engaged in various forms of examination malpractice.

“The Nigeria of those days is not possible in 2012. They (Examination fraudsters) have so many ways of cheating and we, on our part are always coming out with ways to counter them.

“These customised scripts appear alike, but every paper has a unique secret code. So if you use the answer script for English Language, for instance, to answer Biology, we will fish you out,” he said.

The Registrar explained that the secret code was only known to three people and would only be revealed to the invigilator an hour before the examination.

“So we want to let the public know, especially those that are engaged in examination malpractice, do not bother to write outside the hall because your script will be fished out.”

He said part of the measures put in place to secure examination papers were cancellation of “sleeping places’’ , where papers are kept in overnight custody at police stations, banks and even palaces of chiefs in the community.

He said that papers were now kept in a single place, and that is NECO’s state offices, where security had also been tightened.

Okpala said the papers were then transported as early as 5 a.m. on the day of the examination to the examination centres by the many vehicles that were stationed there.

“That is why we have shifted our examination time to 10 a.m. because by then we estimate that the papers would have reached all the centres within the state.

“That has led to an increase in the cost of our logistics, because during full operations, we use as many as 400 vehicles and drivers would be paid allowances,” he said.

Okpala said the foregoing, as well as printing examination questions in batches, had also helped to minimise leakage.

“Most importantly, we do not joke with our staff welfare to prevent inducement by dubious people who offer them `kola’.”

The Registrar who attributed malpractice to lack of preparation on the part of students, urged parents and teachers to prepare candidates for examinations well ahead of time.

“This is all due to the fact that students are not well prepared and so do not have confidence in themselves.

“Let us go back to the roots and make sure we prepare candidates who will be eager to go into examination halls, because nobody seeks for support in a game one can win clean,’’ he advised
http://campusportalng.com/education/neco/neco-to-check-exam-malpractices-in-nigeria-with-customized-answer-scripts/889/