NECO: Exam Malpractice Now Booming Business In Nigeria, FG Adamant

The attention of the Federal Government has been drawn again to the thriving fraud in examinations organized by National Examination Council (NECO) in Nigeria.

CEO/Principal Consultant at Signature TV, VinMartin Obiora Iloh raised the alarm during a radio program, PUBLIC CONSCIENCE produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development, PRIMORG.

Iloh’s observation came on the heels of series of an investigative report published by SIGNATURE TV exposing how NECO officials, external examiners, school proprietors and officials of the Ministry of Education conspire to post candidates to special centres, negotiate fees to allow non-candidates sit exams for absentee candidates to the detriment of the education system in Nigeria.

He made disturbing revelations on how candidates sitting for NECO exams are aided by officials and school owners to write their exams in clear abuse of the law. He also lamented that coordinated malpractice has now become an accepted norm in some schools in Nigeria, where candidates are asked to pay a certain fee to be allowed to partake in examination malpractice.

Iloh expressed dissatisfaction over the Ministry of Education’s uninspiring attitude in stopping the reign of exam malpractice business in Nigeria’s education system despite receiving evidence indicting some officials of assisting the fraud.

His word: “It’s very disappointing that up until now, the Minister of Education has not reacted to letters that we have written, the invitation for interviews, or even commented in that scandalous, exposé.

“I mean, here we have NECO officials on camera compromising exams. If you go to the report, you will see in the exam hall where teachers and NECO officials at a point were dictating answers to the students and when some of them couldn’t even follow the dictation they had to go on the board and then write answers for them to copy. We also brought evidence of exam answers being sent to the phones of the students,” Iloh said.

Raising concerns over funding in government schools, he said: “I think the government should take a lot of blame in what is happening because, how much funding are we getting in these schools? In a lot of local areas, in an entire school they can have one mathematics teacher not even qualified and what sustains a lot of schools today is what is called PTA and these parents come together to hire teachers and pay them fifteen thousand. Some use Youth Corp members and some of them can’t even give complete sentences,” Iloh stressed.

On his part, an Education Consultant, Agaba Wilson Agaba stated that poor facilities, lack of trained teachers, lack of teaching tools amongst other things are the problems of the education system in Nigeria. Adding that the deterioration going on in the system was not too much of a surprise.

Agaba who also criticized the Ministry of Education for not taking action against NECO officials exposed by the investigation stressed that the reason many forms of corruption and exam malpractice are booming all over Nigeria is because culprits are not punished for their crimes.

PRIMORG, however, revealed that it has concluded plans to place the proliferation of special exam centres and other corrupt acts perpetrated in Nigeria’s education on the front burner by taking it to a town hall meeting soon.