26 September 2007
Lagos — ETHICAL regeneration pressure group, Exam Ethics Project (EEP) yesterday, released the 2007 report on examination malpractices in Nigeria, disclosing that the country lost over N107 billion to the vice within the last five years.
Speaking while releasing the report entitled "Exam Ethics and Exam Malpractice Ratings of States and geopolitical zones in Nigeria" in Abuja, executive chairman Ike Onyechere also accused lecturers in public tertiary institutions of extorting about N50 billion from students in 2006 alone.
Onyechere lamented that examination malpractice was no longer a matter of "indiscretion" involving students but had metamorphosed into organized crime controlled by syndicates with links in education ministries, examination agencies and educational institutions.
He regretted that supervisors, invigilators and examiners "are now part of the syndicate rings extorting money from students in exams hall", that "the street value of revenue from examination fraud increased to N25 billion in 2006" alone.
According to Onyechere, "The total number of post-primary exit examination results cancelled by public examination bodies including West African Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), as well as the National Business and Technical Education Board (NABTEB) in 2006 stood at 410,000.
"The total amount lost by parents and governments to results cancelled on account of examination malpractices in 2006 stood at N21 billion. This brings up the amount lost to examination malpractice related cancellations in the last five years to N107 billion."
On tertiary institutions, the NGO boss described as an illusion, the notion that private institutions are more expensive than public schools, stating that the reality was that fees in private institutions go to the purse of the schools while in public institutions, the bulk of the fees go into private pockets.
"Lecturers in public tertiary institutions extorted about N 50 billion from students through sale of handouts in 2006. The purchase of such handouts from lecturers is the major conditionality for passing exams in some institutions of higher learning" he charged.
Onyechere further accused lecturers of sexually harassing female students, saying that this particular scourge took a new dangerous dimension in tertiary institutions in 2006, as well as sale of honorary degrees and admissions.
The ethical reorientation campaigner lamented that the malaise was growing at an alarming rate because of non-sanctioning of people found guilty in such practices.
He lamented that after the publication names of invigilators, supervisors and teachers who were involved in malpractice and their subsequent blacklisting, including the centers/schools that served as venue for such to be carried out, nothing had been done to the affected people.
"Many of the blacklisted officials are still in employment. Not sanctioning them will be interpreted as lack of political will to continue the clean-up. The syndicates will take their cue from there and we will be back at square one," he stated.
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