The Nation Newspaper

Tag: malpractice

  • ‘Parents should not support malpractice’

    ‘Parents should not support malpractice’

    No proprietor is happy to see pupils leave for other schools but if the change is motivated by the desire to perpetrate examination malpractice, Mrs Fatimo Monayajo proprietress of Soundhope Schools, Lagos, does not regret letting them go.

    The educationist of over 29 years experience said in an interview with The Nation that she is only sad that parents and schools get involved in unethical practices all in the name of helping pupils to pass.

    She said in her 18 years of running the Soundhope Montessori School and 15 years of Soundhope High School, she has turned down parents who requested help for their wards in external examinations. And even though their leaving means the school may not always have the minimum 50 candidates stipulated by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to make a centre, Mrs Monayajo does not mind paying the penalty.

    She said: “I do not condone examination malpractice; that is why I don’t take external candidates. We always pay a fine for low candidature and I don’t mind.The reason why I don’t accept external candidature is that I do not know where they are coming from. Many of them are looking for one paper or the other so are desperate to pass by all means.

    “It is sad that even parents have come to complain that we don’t teach our students during examination and I tell them that they have been well equipped to sit for any exams. I always tell parents not to be afraid but to give their children the support by letting them know that they have to read to pass these exams themselves and not somebody teaching them or writing for them.

    “As parents, you may think you are helping these children but we must remember that we will not always be there for them and that is why when they get to the university and place of work they have problems because they cannot defend the certificate they are carrying.”

    With her new school, Soundhope British International Academy, which opened for business this session in Gbagada area of Lagos, Mrs Monayajo said the same principle will apply.

    She mourned the loss of morals that the various ethnic groups in Nigeria used to be known for and seeks their restoration, which she believes will help the country get out of the doldrums.

    “To solve the problem of examination malpractice and others, we must look at the moral level; our values; we have lost our values. To correct this let us go back to the basis, our values, our language. The problem is that we are forgetting where we come from,” she said.

    To give pupils of SoundHope British International Academy an edge, Mrs Monayajo said the school will offer a blend of the Nigerian and British Curriculum and present them for examinations in both areas.

    She added that teaching and learning will be ICT-driven as provisions have been made for all classrooms to be equipped with electronic boards/projectors and laptops for teachers and pupils to interact during class sessions.

    “My class size here is 20 because of the facilities and the kind of education we want to give. The teacher would give individualised attention,” she said.

    Mrs Monayajo said the school offered four scholarships -to two indigent pupils from Gbagada and two others who performed excellently in the entrance examination.

     

  • JAMB CBT curtails malpractice

    •JAMB official, YABATECH worker trade words

    Some candidates who took the Computer Based Test (CBT) option of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) on Saturday were disappointed that the exam went without hitches.

    Candidates had little room to cut corners during the exam, because each candidate was assigned a computer and on logging in, had to answer questions as randomly provided by the computer.

    While two candidates sitting side by side could have the same subject combination, they would not come in the same order, and the questions would not be the same.

    One candidate, who wrote at the Federal College of Education (Technical) Akoka said that the exam seat was hotter than the hot seat of “Who wants to be a millionaire”, the TV game show hosted by Frank Edohor.

    “There are no life lines, no option for phone a friend or ask the audience,” he said.

    Another candidate who said she came from Badagry the previous day to ensure she made it to the centre on time, added that with this system, JAMB is sure to reduce malpractice.

    “There are a lot of invigilators inside, so you can’t even talk. We were hoping that there would be problems with the CBT, which will compel JAMB to give all of us 250 each as a win-win situation. But this is actually encouraging because you face your work. The malpractice will be reduced. It is better this way. You cannot cheat, you cannot jump from one subject to the other, and there is no expo,” she said.

    Many of the candidates who wrote the CBT exam were compelled to choose the option because the PPT centres were filled up. However, even for those who were not computer literate, taking the CBT exam was no problem.

    “It is not difficult. If you can use a phone, you can do the CBT,” one candidate said.

    The examination started on schedule at the two centres in the University of Lagos – the electronic Testing Company, eTC, centre, and the CITS, the university’s ICT centre. Biometric verification gave no problems in the centres.

    However, there were some candidates who registered for the Dual Based Test (DBT) option that were sent away because they ought to have written their exam on April 27 with the Paper and Pencil Test (PPT) candidates. Many claimed that they heard the exam was postponed.

    An official at the eTC centre alleged that those who came had done the DBT, found that they failed, and then tried to play smart by coming back, claiming that they heard the date was postponed.

    “They came here but we called JAMB and they said DBT had already been written so we sent them away. They were many, but I didn’t note the number,” she said.

    JAMB supervisor at CITS, Mrs Zainab Hamza, said the DBT candidates who came could not have claimed ignorance of the date of their examination because it was printed on their slips.

    “Some DBT candidates came, but we sent them back because the date is on their slips,” she said.

    At the FCE (Tech), Akoka, Lagos the JAMB Supervisor, who did not wish to be named, said a DBT candidate was allowed to do the biometric verification, but was rejected by the computer; another candidate who registered for the CBT had the number she claimed was her own.

    Meanwhile, it was chaos at the Yaba College of Technology, (YABATECH) centre as a JAMB official and a YABATECH worker almost fought in one of the centres in the polytechnic.

    Trouble started at the YABATECH digital centre, one of the venues of the exam, when candidates could not log in after power went out and was restored.

    Director of the centre, Mr IK Oyeyinka, claimed the JAMB program was not working; this angered the JAMB official.

    The official said it was not the JAMB platform but YABATECH server.

    But Oyeyinka, absolved Yabatech of any culpability, describing JAMB programme as ‘rubbish.’

    This also irked the JAMB official, who cautioned Oyeyinka to watch his tongue. But Oyeyinka was more inflamed, calling the official unprintable names this necessitated the latter to order him out of the premises.

    Oyeyinka who never knew this interviewer was a reporter fumed: “I was trying to explain to him that the Dual Based Test was done here without any problem; but the introduction of the Computer Based Test, we are having problems logging in. He refused to accept his fault and told them to throw me out. Why would he say I should be thrown out of my office? This is my digital centre,” Oyeyinka fumed.

    While the drama lasted, some candidates who had become worried started to protest that their time was being wasted as they had stayed idle in the hall for over an hour.

    However, the other centre at YABATECH was peaceful and candidates from the second centre finished their exams on time. Some candidates who had remained hitherto idle from the problematic centre were moved into the hitch-free centre at 1.45pm to commence the CBT.

     

  • Educationist lists evils of exam malpractice

    Educationist lists evils of exam malpractice

    Olugbenga Adebiyi, Executive Director, Gemsland Learning and Development Centre, has said if exam malpractice is not curbed, the present generation of Nigerian students will end up producing incompetent professionals, including doctors who will forget scissors and towel in the stomach after surgical operations.

    “As long as malpractice is prevailing, it will also produce students with Alphas in WASSCE results; first class honours in the universities without a single knowledge in any defined course or subject. It will produce teachers who are unable to spell the names of their schools correctly. This generation will end up producing lawyers who cannot differentiate between an accused person and the complainant,” he said.

    Adebiyi who spoke at a seminar organised by Gemsland for secondary school pupils writing the WASSCE at the Agidingbi Senior Grammar School, Ikeja, said the candidates needed to be informed about the evils of examination malpractice and how to avoid them.

    Apart from exposing them to the ills of malpractice to deter them, Adebiyi taught the pupils how to prepare properly for the examinations, approach various questions and avoid temptation in the examination hall.

    Also speaking, Mr Chuks Okonta, Adebiyi’s partner, said the seminar would help the pupils be confident in themselves ahead of any examination so they know they do not have to cheat.

    “Through this programme we just came into the system to bridge the gap. For a while we have had issues with examination malpractice. Many organisations believe that the menace has come to stay with us. But we believe that we can do something to prepare the students ahead of the exam so that they will know those things that they have to forestall not to be victims of exam malpractice. This is because candidates write exams and their results are withheld even when they do not get involved in exam malpractice. The public or government has the perception that anything that has to do with Nigerian examination must be fraudulent. This is what we are trying to checkmate. If the student know their rights, and the dos or donts it will really help to curb the menace that has eaten deep into the Nigerian education system.