Chairperson of Council, West African Examinations Council, Dr. Evelyn Kandakai, has urged the five countries in the West African sub-region to curb examination malpratices before they kill education in the area.
Kandakai said this during the International Summit on Examination Malpractice, which had the theme: “Examination Malpractice: The Contemporary Realities And Antidotes,” held in Lagos.
According to her, posterity would not forgive the stakeholders if they failed to do the needful in fighting the menace, which had eaten deep into the fabric of education in the region.
She said that school authorities, teachers and parents had helped examination malpractice to strive and its multiplier effects were affecting national development.
“It is because of this reason we are fighting examination malpractice through call to stakeholders for partnership, which has worsened with the existence of the social media,” she said.
She added that 95 per cent of parents wished their children would be among the 5 per cent at the top of their class at all times, thereby engaging in all sorts of dubious means to get them to pass.
Kandakai said WAEC deemed it fit to organise the summit, which had been a major source of distractions to the council because the council wanted to block all avenues for the die-hard perpetrators of the menace.
Earlier in his welcome address, WAEC Registrar, Dr. Uyi Uwadiae, said the summit was necessary because the council had used all means to curb examination malpractices through cancellation of results, deregulation of results and withholding of results, among others, but these seems not to deter them in their fraudulent act.
He said over the years, the council had called on stakeholders to partner with WAEC to fight the cankerworm with no results, “But with this summit, we hope to offer workable solution, if not total eradication, by reducing it to the barest minimum.”
In his remark, the Chairman, House Committee on Education, Alh. Zakari Muhammed, said one of the major reasons that got the country into examination malpractices was the theft of certificates.
According to him, people needed to understand that not all persons could become graduate and “unless we go back to the drawing board and look at what is happening, things will get worse.”
He added that instead of the four years or a fine of N100,000 sanction on people caught cheating during examinations, there was need to review and raise it to 10 years imprisonment without any option of fine.
“I believe this will curb the perpetrators, especially owners of miracle centres, which must be eradicated by all means,” he said.
Representative of the Minister, Alhaji Mohammed karagi, said examination malpractice was corruption in its totality and must be eradicated by all means.
He added that if examination malpractices were not curbed, the menace would continue to render examination bodies’ works useless and they would continue to lose their validity.
Emeritus Professor, Pius Obanya, while delivering the Keynote paper, urged stakeholders to curb examination malpractices from its root not at the surface, noting that this was the only way the menace could be stopped in its totality.
