Quality education is manifest in innovation and critical thinking that results in development. In Nigeria, where exam malpractice thrives, a myopic mindset reigns, corruption ravages several aspects of national life, examination cheats and their enablers have continued to have a field day. The federal government’s revelation of a 2027 target for transitioning its examination system to 100 per cent Computer-Based Test (CBT) is instructive. IYABO LAWAL explores the path that the government is bent on taking as well as its pros and cons.

In 2015, the erstwhile registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde said: “I foresee a JAMB that will conduct the Computer-Based Test (CBT) examination within five days. I see a JAMB that will conduct a 100 per cent hitch-free and malpractice-free examination. I see a world-acclaimed JAMB in a few years to come.”

The CBT was introduced by JAMB in 2012 and was first tried in 2013. Today, as they say, the rest is history, maybe for JAMB, but not for Nigeria’s entire education system.

Last December, the federal government set a three-year timeline to migrate all examinations conducted by the National Examinations Council (NECO) and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to CBT mode.  
 
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, who disclosed this at a meeting with officials of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board  (JAMB), WAEC, and NECO restated the government’s zero tolerance for examination malpractice, reiterating the need to protect the sanctity of all examinations.
 
At the meeting, where a committee was constituted to address key issues, including examination leaks, identity theft, fraud, and improving supervision, the minister reiterated the government’s commitment to uphold the integrity of NECO and WAEC examinations and placement examinations administered by JAMB.
 
“One of the key decisions taken at the meeting was the transition of all examinations into a CBT platform within the next three years to ensure a more secure and efficient examination process.
 
This is a significant step towards building a robust and credible examination system for Nigeria. We are moving swiftly to protect the future of our education system and ensure that our students’ achievements are recognised fairly and accurately,” the minister explained.
  
Alausa was not alone. The Minister of State for Education, Dr Suwaiba Ahmad, expressed concerns about the prevalence of unethical practices in the education sector.  She condemned the pooling of funds by students to access leaked answers through WhatsApp and the bribing of school officials to enable and overlook exam malpractice.
 
“With these measures in place, Nigeria is poised to strengthen the credibility of its educational system and set a new standard for examination security,” Ahmad said.
 
This January, the Nigerian government officially set a 2027 target for transitioning its examination system to 100 per cent CBT. The education minister disclosed this during the inauguration of the Committee on Improvement of Quality Examinations in Abuja on January 23.
 
The committee was tasked with addressing key challenges in the education sector, standardising examination processes, and ensuring fairness and quality, with the primary aim of tackling widespread examination malpractices and enhancing the overall quality of the nation’s educational assessments.
  
According to the education minister, tackling examination leaks requires a holistic approach, as students are not the only culprits in examination malpractices; the list includes teachers, principals, head teachers, proprietors, and invigilators.
 
“So, we’re planning that by 2027, all our exams will be computer-based. We will work so hard to ensure that it happens. We have to use technology to help our endeavour. The committee will also be working with local swapping of candidates. There are multiple participants in examination practices. During this change, many areas of compromise will happen. There will be people investigating and regulating the exams,” Alausa said.
 
He described exam malpractice as a growing threat, warning that allowing it to persist will undermine the efforts of diligent and honest students striving for academic excellence.
 
The minister also announced that exam certificates would now feature three key identifiers: national identification numbers, candidates’ photos, and birth dates to ensure the authenticity of results.

Examination fraud as a national pastime?
CHEATING has become glamorised in Africa’s most populous country so much that a cheat strolled into the National Assembly and became the number four most powerful individual. You guessed his name right: Salisu Buhari, who was caught, named, shamed and nailed. Unsurprisingly, the federal government, populated by political class members, granted him a state pardon.
 
Before long, Buhari was appointed to the eminent governing council of the University of Nigeria (UNN). This year, he was turbaned as the new Iyan Daura in Katsina—little wonder more Nigerians are seeing examination malpractice as a norm or becoming numb to the insidious plague.
 
The frequency of institutional compromises and examination malpractices dent academic excellence records; hence, the school system needs to clean its records to enhance credibility.
 
During the release of the 2024 Senior School Certificate Examination conducted by NECO, the registrar, Prof. Dantani Wushishi, disclosed that 40 secondary schools across 17 states were involved in mass cheating. In the same vein, WAEC, through the Head of Nigeria Office, Dr Amos Dangut, said the body withheld results of about 215,267 candidates for alleged malpractices.
 
The JAMB registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, while announcing the results of 2024’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), said that the body withheld 64,000 candidates’ results for possible examination misconduct. The results of 531 others were eventually released.
 
Cheats in the country’s academic ecosystem are not just playing catch-up, they are matching the various academic institutions’ measures to deal with the embarrassing and insidious menace despite the potential decades in prison staring them in the face.
 
Even though the government promulgated laws, which stipulate a four-year jail term for anyone found guilty of exam malpractice, cheating has become the norm rather than the exception in many schools. In 2006 the Federal Ministry of Education blacklisted and de-recognised 324 secondary schools as centres for conducting public exams from 2007 to 2010. It is 2025, and some may presumably conclude that exam cheats are some steps ahead of the regulators.
 
At one time, the JAMB registrar enlisted the assistance of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to fight exam fraud.

Gaming the system: CBT as a cure-all?
MANY Nigerians believe that the CBT has helped to reduce the ubiquitous level of malpractice. Nonetheless, students, teachers, schools, parents, and corrupt government officials are still keeping vigils to unravel the seemingly foolproof CBT system currently used by JAMB.
  
If JAMB can go hi-tech, why can’t the cheats? As more cheats were overreaching the firewall of the CBT network, JAMB soon realised the computer-based exam mode needed a sister. Acting like a quick-thinking institution allergic to malpractice, it decided to install CCTVs at examination centres.
 
“Without the deployment of the CCTV, one will just be making a mockery of the computer-based test,” the JAMB boss said. “This device has ensured that even if a cheating candidate was not caught during the examination, such candidate will be caught after the examination.”
 
He added: “I have statistics, which showed that what we have in Nigeria as far as examination malpractice is concerned is a child’s play compared with what is happening in other climes. Today, the phenomenon is becoming alarming with the aid of technological devices for cheating, such as smartwatches and others. But in our case, as these children are getting wiser, we too are getting ahead of them.”
 
According to JAMB, malpractice starts with registration, and examination bodies are getting it wrong. It noted that these organisations think that malpractice “is only at the point of writing examination, but we have come to discover that malpractice starts from the registration point” and could manifest in the form of multiple registrations and all forms of impersonation.
 
JAMB alleged an exam fraud syndicate brought in equipment from China, mounted it, and penetrated “our system through a computer-based centre, got our IP address, and was collecting N50,000 per week from different centres that were registering.”
 
Sparse IT infrastructure, power supply as CBT’s albatross
WHILE the government is ramping up the establishment of CBT centres, which many observers find commendable, the recent incident where intending candidates of the 2025 UTME spent up to six hours to be registered leaves much to be desired. The registration was eventually rescheduled for another day, resulting in stress and wasted time.
 
“We have been here since morning. We filled out the forms and are waiting for our time, but the system has been sluggish, and we were asked to return tomorrow. This will be our third attempt at UTME registration,” said Success Enonfu, a prospective UTME candidate.
 
Emmanuel Owobu regretted the delay in the registration process at the centre, saying it constituted additional discouragement. “I didn’t want to try again, but my parents said I must, and here I am sitting for hours without making any headway.”

Nigeria’s history of exam fraud
The fight against exam malpractice in Nigeria has been ongoing for years, but it has built a strong defence line fortified by characters within: students, teachers, parents, corrupt school owners, and sundry stakeholders. All these combined to make the hope of victory over it a mere dream.
 
The birth of exam malpractice in Nigeria could be traced to 1914 when it was reported that the question papers of Senior Cambridge Local Examinations were leaked to the students even before the exam day. From then on, the practice gradually became an unwelcome guest who did not want to leave.
 
In 1990, a survey reported that about 70 per cent of students admitted to having engaged in one form of exam malpractice or the other. The report noted that from 1991, the menace took a new, more sophisticated dimension in both secondary and tertiary education institutions, prompting the government to enact a law that punishes any exam malpractice by four years imprisonment. But it became more of encouragement than a deterrence.
 
By 2000, about six per cent of 636,064 candidates were involved in one form of sharp practice or the other.

But then, it was only the tip of the iceberg. In 2001, five per cent of the 1,025,185 examination candidates sought the shortcut to pass. In 2002, 10.5 per cent of the 909,888 examination candidates got involved in examination malpractice.
  
In 2003, the percentage of examination malpractices increased to 11 per cent from 1,066,831 candidates who sat the examination. In the year 2004, another percentage increment was recorded. Out of the 1,035,280 candidates, 11 per cent cheated.
 
Stakeholders lamented that in a nation where exam malpractices thrive, many of its citizens will end up being insensible, dishonest, ignorant, narrow-minded, myopic, deceptive, and disingenuous. Similarly, an educationist, Victory Ndukwe, noted that before introducing such e-testing to students, they need to be taught how to use a computer, as this can be seamlessly done by adding it to their curriculum.
 
“But, let me ask, how many secondary schools in Nigeria are equipped with computers?” How can a brilliant student in the most remote part of Nigeria who has never got his hands on a computer due to lack of the device in his remote school, and whose parents’ incomes are so meagre that they cannot afford him one write and pass the exams?”
 
A retired principal, Femi Akinola, noted that exam malpractice puts the country’s youngsters and professionals in a situation that leads to a future of social, political, and economic bankruptcy.
 
“Quality education is manifest in innovation and critical thinking that results in development. In a nation where exam malpractice thrives, myopic mindset, ignorance, disingenuity, and corruption characterise the people, and underdevelopment tells the story,” he stated.
 
On his part, a professor of Education at the University of Ibadan (UI) Hassan Oyediran, described the introduction of CBT for examinations as a welcome development, noting that we are in the era of technology where students are expected to be ICT compliant.
 
“However, to effectively conduct computer-based exams, do we have what it takes nationwide to operate it across board, or do we have to experiment it with a select few in some states?”
 
Oyediran said to operate such a capital project, constant electricity supply must be put in place, except there are alternative means of getting it done  On her part, Dr Tolu  Osinuga, a school owner,  urged the government to bridge the computer literacy gap between students in rural and urban centres, adding that many students in public schools are not computer literate because they are not exposed to the use of computer sets.
 
“How many of those students can access the computer? Even when they are taught theory in class, how many of them have computer sets to practice with?” she queried.
 
As the government plans for nationwide CBT mode exams, it will have to work round the clock to ensure the availability of power and computers to match intention with action.