Recently, the Lagos State government imposed a fine of half a million naira on each of a total of 27 private secondary schools in the state were being culpable of examination malpractice by the West African Examinations Council during its 2020 April\May school-based West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
The state also warned 19 others for being indicted of examination malpractice and documents falsification during the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) conducted also last year by the state government for all the junior secondary school (JSS) 3 students in the state.
The state government, in a statement made available to newsmen then by the Head of Public Affairs of the Office of Education Quality Assurance (OEQA), Mr Emmanuel Olaniran, indicated that the former category were asked to pay their N500, 000 fine each totalling N13.5 million into the state government’s coffer while the latter category were only served letters of warning.
The statement said the state government took the decision to serve as punishment to the erring schools and also as deterrent to others for the sake of quality education in the state.
Also in the statement, both the chairman of the state’s Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM), Mrs Elizabeth Ariyo, who represented the state Commissioner for Education, Mrs Folasade Adefisayo in one of the investigative panels that recommended the sanctions, and the director-general of OEQA, Mrs Abiola Seriki-Ayeni, who served as the chairman of the second panel, told owners of the affected schools that the state government expectation from them and their colleagues is to support the quest for quality education by the administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu by operating strictly on thrust reposed in them and not to indulge in malpractice.
The statement read further in part that “All the indicted schools are to repeat the whole school evaluation and subject recognition process with the OEQA within two years of their de-recognition period as mandated by WAEC.”
Reacting to this development, the private school owners expressed displeasure over non-inclusion of public schools in the report, saying the state government made it appear to the public as if only the private schools were indicted for malpractice particularly in WASSCE.
They said members of the public also deserve to know the type of consequences the state government served its own schools and principals since the same offence was committed.
President of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Lagos State Chapter, Mr Olawale Mohammed, for example, told Nigerian Tribune in an exclusive interview that he is quite aware that some indicted schools are actually public schools.
Similarly, the chairman of League of Muslim School Proprietors (LEAMSP), Lagos State chapter, Mr Raheem Fatai, said though none of LEAMSP member schools was involved, public schools were certainly involved in the fraudulent practice.
When contacted, the head of Public Affairs Department, WAEC Nigeria, Mr Damianus Ojijeogu, confirmed to Nigerian Tribune that some government schools in the state were equally indicted for malpractice not even only in the examination in reference but also in those before it.
He said examination malpractice during the council’s examinations is not peculiar to Lagos State schools but across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
He explained that WAEC usually makes official reports after due investigations had been conducted on all indicted schools and individual candidates and the approval given by the Nigeria Examination Committee (NEC), which is the highest decision- making organ of WAEC on exam matters to their respective state ministries of education for action.
He said all the indicted schools and the examination officials including invigilators and supervisors who were also found culpable of aiding malpractice during the examination had already served their punishments including being banned from participating in the WAEC’s future examinations for a certain number of years, among other punishments.
Though, he refused to give statistics nor the identities of the affected schools in the state, he said only what he knows is that the state government has a way of dealing with erring principals and other examination officials from public schools caught in such practice including relive of appointment or demotion.
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