A few days ago, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) released it’s 2022 results. It was reported that over 70% of the candidates passed the examinations, but what’s the truth the massive success in this year’s examinations?
On checking the results, the students, parents and well wishers around the country started celebrating in the media, prominently competing to show the As, Bs and the Cs the students got in the examinations, despite knowing the root and the exigencies on which the 70% of the students hinges upon to pass the examinations.
It’s well known that in the contemporary Nigerian secondary schools, a school hardly produced 20 candidates who could pass the examinations without being involved in the dubious act of examination malpractice, which is one of the fundamental factors to the production of half-baked graduates.
It is worrisome that the malpractice ranges from the examining body, who fears losing its candidates, to the other bodies and to the invigilator who sees his role as an opportunity to make money; and from the teachers who have no option than providing the answers and to the students who unavoidably participate to pass; and from the society that discourages the students to the parents that spew curses on them when they fail.
There are many national examination bodies in the country who do well in giving the students heart-soothing results despite their poor qualification in the examination, yet the country does nothing. So, WAEC, too, has no option than giving its candidates the undeserved results.
In the same vein, what could be a panacea in a case where the invigilator and the teacher have no way of income apart from invigilating and teaching the students, but the country gives them no heed and pays them a peanuts as salary that cannot cater for their needs, talkless of their families; or in a situation where a teacher has no tools to teach the students the syllabuses, laboratory tests or doesn’t even have the required classrooms for the lessons in a school that has over 3000 students. In this case, there shall come a conspiracy between the invigilator and the teacher, thereby asking the students to pay some fines for the answers.
Moreso, when we look at the contemporary Nigerian parents who ask the students to do some tasks where a line of dichotomy exists between the tasks and the academics during the school days and at the end blame the body, curse the students and the society laughs at those who fail, what could be the way than participating in the heinous, future-wrecking act, examination malpractice in the WAEC and in the other examining bodies?
The truth is that, until the government works thoroughly on the other bodies that participate in the examination malpractice and remain unchecked; pays the teachers a good salary and provide the available tools and equipment for teaching and learning, and the parents support the education sector by letting the students go to school at the proper time and the society encourages those that fail, we will be wallowing in a more disastrous menaces that would sniff life out of this country’s progress and development.
Salim Yakubu Akko,
Gombe, Gombe state
