Chidimma Uchegbu – Abuja
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Olatunji Alausa, yesterday said miracles centers to be converted for good education to our children not for cheat in order not to mess their future.
The Minister disclosed this of Fridat at the Ministry’s Headquarters in Abuja, while receiving the Deliverable Report from the 17 Members Committee on Improving Quality Examinations in Nigeria and eliminating malpractices, set up six months ago.
According to the Minister the 17 Members Committee led by the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is’haq Oloyede on various approaches to eradicating malpractices, the Minister emphasized that government machinery will be used to fight every cheaters.
“We have built an ecosystem in the past several decades, ecosystem of people cheating, exam fraud involving principals of schools, teachers, invigilators, parents and students.
“So we have to break that vicious cycle, and that is what these committees worked on in the last six month”.
Dr Alausa assured Nigerians that examination malpractices will soon be a thing of the past.
Below are some approaches to eliminating malpractices recommended by the Committees:
. Invigilators, examiners and supervisor must register to NIN and subscribe to examination body short code
. Swapping of invigilators, supervisors
. Invigilators, supervisors should be public officials on pensionable appointment, public servant’s knows the implications of being dismissed from service.
*Examination halls sitting arrangements 1.5,1.2, or 1.8 Square meter per candidate should be maintained
. Examinations hall centres should be filled with stationary CCTV Cameras for surveillance and monitoring purposes.
. Every examination centers should have a control room where CCTV cameras are monitored
. All examination bodies like WAEC, NECO and others should have a joint central control facilities instead of individual.
. Malpractices Court or tribunal for prompt prosecution of examination malpractices to serve as deterrent to others.
