SIR: It should not be surprising that more than half of the students that registered for WAEC in the last exam failed woefully. Of all the noticeable rot in Nigeria, the most unfortunate is the colossal and fundamental damage done to the education sector, and it ought to be of paramount concern to all well-meaning Nigerians. An education sector dominated by so many malpractices can hardly yield any positive results and the bottom line is for Nigeria’s leaders to return to the drawing board and wage serious war on the cankerworm of examination malpractice in all ramifications for things to return to normal.
It is sad that even from the lowest rung of the education sector, as early as common entrance examination, pupils are already launched into the mess of malpractice as both teachers and parents collaborate in the illicit affairs of rendering assistance to pupils who ought to be allowed to face the examinations by themselves. In the end, the outcomes of such exams do not reflect the individual performance of the little children and the ugly trend continues in the secondary schools. To the eternal shame of Nigeria, there is hardly any secondary school in Nigeria where malpractice is not perpetrated during external examinations. Stiff competition among schools has resulted in a situation where every school wants to record a hundred percent success in all external examinations as a form of marketing strategy for their schools and that includes assisting their students in their exams. Therefore, if Lagos government is complaining of mass failure of its students in WAEC, one should be sure that it is those who collected money to assist the students, be it their own school teachers or others who have failed to deliver, and until the arrant nonsense stops, Nigeria will simply continue to play the ostrich and deceiving itself.
Even in qualifying examinations to the tertiary institutions, most of candidates are still assisted and in the end, utterly poor candidates are given upper hand over and above naturally brilliant candidates who are denied admission. It is quite unfortunate that in Nigeria, while naturally brilliant candidates rot at home due either to financial constraints or absence of connection with the right people, those without the requisite aptitude for tertiary education are all over the campuses making a total mockery of learning. Whatever has to be done, examination malpractice must be stamped out of all examinations conducted in Nigeria and there should be a method of sorting out the naturally brilliant candidates who are incapacitated in any way so the state can assist in the way of making scholarship available to them. It is only when proper things are done as far as education is concerned that the products of Nigeria’s schools would be able to excel and education itself resume its pride of place in the country.
• Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Nigeria
