NECO boss reaffirms commitment to combating examination malpractice

The Registrar/Chief Executive of the National Examinations Council (NECO), Professor Ibrahim Dantani Wushishi, has reiterated the Council’s commitment to fighting examination malpractice amongst its candidates.

Wushishi stated this while responding to reporter’s questions shortly after monitoring the on-going Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) in some post-primary schools in Enugu on Wednesday.

The NECO Registrar stated that the exam body had zero tolerance for examination malpractices, hence it took measures to make sure that all stakeholders were sensitised: both parents and students and policymakers.

“We used to hold workshops and we also introduced measures to curb exam malpractice. We have introduced biometric machines to cub impersonation and apart from that our photo album, if you look at it very carefully, it has a barcode. If you use your Android phone to scan the barcode you will see the details of the candidate appearing, that is also to curb malpractice.

“So we have put a lot of measures, scan measures, security measures, employing undercover security operators so that they will not know that they are security men and women.

“And even this fishing site, we have employed an intelligent section of the NECO so we are working assiduously with DSS to uncover this person that engages on this so that we guard against the leakage of examination questions,” he said.

According to him, no less than 1, 376, 391 Nigerian students and 2000 foreign candidates are sitting in the current 2024 National Examination Council (NECO) examinations.

The NECO Registrar and his team visited College of Immaculate Conception (CIC) Enugu and Federal Government College Enugu, among others.

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Professor Wushishi said he decided to embark on the monitoring exercise in order to avail himself of first-hand information on the progress, processes and challenges regarding the examination.

Giving a breakdown of the figure, he said, “This year we have recorded 1, 376,391 candidates overall; 706,490 male, 669,000 plus female candidates. The number this year exceeded what we had recorded last year. Last year we had recorded 1,205, 888 candidates. For this year we are having 1.3million so it’s an appreciation of enrollment rate as far as SSCE is concerned.

“On the number of foreign candidates that are sitting, they are very much because they are more than 2000 that are sitting for this examination. They are Nigerian citizens and other foreign nationals that are impressed with the curriculum of the school there, they write the same examination, so they are Nigerians and citizens of other countries.

“We have to monitor what is happening in the field and that is why we decided to monitor geopolitical zones; the South East and South South. In the South South, we monitored Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states. In the South East we monitored Abia, Imo, Anambra and Enugu states. We have to do that by road so that in the process where we see any school we go there by surprise to monitor what is going on as far as exam in concerned.

“This has availed us a lot number of opportunities to see what is going on in the field. So far South South and South East were visited. We have not found any fundamental thing that is negative in the processes of the exam. Everything is going fine; delivery of sensitive and non-sensitive materials were done on time and all the exams and reports and interactions from principals and major stakeholders, commissioners and directors in the Ministries of Education and schools we went to attest to the fact that all the materials were delivered on time.

“I am impressed with what I have seen so far, even the sitting arrangement was perfect.”

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE