The National Examinations Council (NECO) has called on the federal government to formulate policies aimed at promoting discipline and honesty among teachers, school administrators and students.
The acting Registrar of the council, Mr Abubakar Gana, made this known in a brief submitted to the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu in Abuja Tuesday.
The brief was on the mandate and achievements of the council between May 2018 and September.
Gana further appealed to the government to prioritise security of examinations just as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is provided security during elections.
He said the appeal came as the menace of examination malpractice continued to hunt public examinations across the country, with NECO recording over 40,000 cases in its June/July Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE).
He said the incessant cases of examination malpractices, especially impersonation and collusion by supervisors, teachers and school administrators, was a major challenge in the conduct of the exercise.
The council had acquired 8,000 biometric verification machines before the conduct of the 2019 SSCE.
The registrar said the body required more biometric verification devices to serve its over 16,000 centres to strengthen its efforts toward eliminating identity theft.
“Immediately I resumed, I embarked on critical reforms, which had led to the successful conduct of the 2018 June/July SSCE under compelling circumstances and released the results of the examination within 40 days of completion.”
He further stated that the council abolished the use of scratch cards following the scam that surrounded it, which led to loss of hundreds of millions in revenue.He added that this subjected all printed 2018 November/December registration cards to activation only after the money for each card must have been credited to the council’s TSA .
