The Federal Government has proposed the establishment of National Examination Malpractice Court/Tribunal for prompt prosecution of examination infractions to serve as deterrent to others.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa said this in Abuja while receiving a committee report on improvement of quality examinations.
Affirming the recommendations of the 17-man committee, headed by the Registrar, Joint Administrations and Matriculation Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the minister that said it would improve the quality of examinations in the country.
Mr Alausa assured the committee members that the 12-point recommendations would be implemented, noting that the government would deploy its machinery to fight the menace of examination malpractice.
He said, “Let me assure the committee members that you have done so much work here, and the recommendations you have given us as a government, we will implement every single one of them. All the 12 recommendations that you reeled out, everyone will agree with me today that none of them will be impossible to implement. They are all practicable things. Those that will be implemented now, we will do that right away,” he said.
Recall that the minister inaugurated the committee in January and it submitted its interim report after five months of extensive work.
In one of the recommendations, the committee urged the Federal Ministry of Education to interface with the National Assembly to enact law establishing a National Examination Malpractice Court/Tribunal for prompt prosecution of examination malpractices.
The committee also recommended that documents, including certificates, registration and result slips, should contain National Identification Number (NIN), photograph and date of birth of candidates, to guard against identity theft and impersonation.
The committee stated, “All invigilators and supervisors must register through NIN and subscribe to the examination body’s short code, using the same pattern of 55019/66019 of JAMB to track and have full information about the examination officials, including examiners, supervisors and invigilators. Swapping of invigilators and supervisors, should commence with effect from the 2025 private SSCE due to the strong views against student swapping expressed by the four concerned examination bodies (WAEC, NECO, NABTEB and NBAIS).
“Except where absolutely impossible, invigilators and supervisors should always be public officials, teachers on pensionable appointments. The standard requirements of examination halls/centres should not be waived for any school, while the recommended seating arrangement should be 1.5m by 1.2m. or 1.8 sqm per candidate.”
The committee also recommended that examination halls and centres should be equipped with stationary CCTV cameras for surveillance and monitoring purposes.
It stated, “In addition, every examination centre shall have a mini control room where the CCTV camera is monitored for urgent and immediate alert.”
The committee also recommended that examination bodies shall jointly own central control facilities for their use during examinations to save cost; and body camcorders should be deployed to examination halls and centres for effective monitoring.
Also recommended by the committee was that, at the point of entry into basic school, every pupil must generate a unique code which is linked to his/her NIN which must be identified with the pupil throughout his/her educational journey in Nigeria.
The committee noted that the non-implementation of the 1999 Examination Malpractice Act suggested either a lack of political will or non-implementable.
It, therefore, recommended a review of the Act in such a manner that it could be immediately implemented to curb examination malpractice.
“Rather than wait till 2027 as initially suggested, the Computer Based Examination (CBE) should be implemented for objective questions in 2025 private examinations and in full for school candidates in 2026. The 30 per cent continuous assessment component in the Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations has become a veritable source of corruption in the examination system due to the fraudulent process of inputting the scores in arrears.
The committee, therefore, recommended the immediate review of the continuous assessment system by the relevant agencies.
(NAN)