The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), on Thursday, said examination malpractice is still one of the major problems it is contending with.
The Head of National Office of WAEC Nigeria, Mr Patrick Areghan, gave this position at an official launch of the Digital Certificate Platform designed by the organisation to treat all cases relating to certificates of candidates sitting for its West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) online.
The event was held at the council’s international office in Agidingbi, Ikeja, with the stakeholders including students in attendance.
Areghan said just as WAEC is deploying measures to prevent malpractice in its various examinations such as May\June school-based WASSCE and private candidates’ exams , candidates alone or with their schools, ”miracle centres,” parents, exam officials and “rogue” website operators are trying to outsmatch the system by developing their own methods of cheating.
“But the good news is that no matter how hard they try, they are unable to beat WAEC to it as candidates who escaped being caught in the examination halls are being detected through their answer scripts during marking and that is why we are still recording huge cases of cancelled results year-in and out,” he said.
While appealing to students and all other agents, who believe and indulge in examination malpractice to desist from the act as malpractice is a road to future and destiny destruction, Areghan said government and security agents on their parts, should also perform their roles more effectively to reduce to barest minimum cases of exam malpractice generally in the country.
He said even though exam malpractice is universal and not limited to Nigeria alone, Nigeria should fight it from all fronts and win the war.
Speaking about the newly launched Digital Certificate Platform, which is a one-stop shop system, Areghan said the platform is designed to treat all cases relating to certificates of candidates sitting for the council’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
He explained that through the platform, the users of the system including owners of certificates, institutions and organisations in both the public and private sectors anywhere globally can access, confirm and share certificates of candidates of any of its three diets for whatever purpose from anywhere they are globally.
He said the platform for now captures certificates of only candidates from the year 1999 to date while those from 1970 to 1998 would be uploaded within three months from now.
He said other candidates from inception of WAEC in 1952 to 1969, who may likely be in their 70s by now are not factored in the new system, noting that such people will not likely need the certificates again.
He explained further that the users of the platform can make request, confirm and share information concerning a candidate’s certificate online even as the owner of such certificate can also recover forgotten examination number or print out their missing or damaged certificate on their own online.
He said the certificates are configured in such a manner that hackers cannot be able to break into the platform just as they are unable to do so concerning WAEC results data bank since inception.
He said with the launch, WAEC has completely shifted all its operations concerning candidates’ certificates to online as in line with the best global practices.
She noted that the platform with the process at various stages goes for certain fee is on a dedicated link on the council’s website and the users could also upload the application on their android phones, laptop or other digital devices.
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