The Lagos state government has vowed to end all forms of exam malpractice as it granted approval to over 214 private schools in the state.
The approval brings to 706 the number of private schools approved in the last three years.
The vow to eradicate exam malpractice formed a part of the speech given by the state’s deputy governor, Dr Idiat Oluranti Adebule, as she presented Letters of Provisional Approval to the proprietors of the 214 schools at the 3rd stakeholder’s forum with owners of private schools in the state.
Adebule blamed the fall in the standard of education for the alarming rise in incidences of examination malpractice.
She stated that the report of the West African Examination Council since 2014 indicated that exam malpractice is on the rise and that private schools are most culpable, adding that, 28 of the 29 schools indicted in 2014 were private schools while 50 out of 60 and 53 of 66 schools indicted in 2015 and 2016 respectively are privately-owned.
According to her, apart from taking disciplinary measures against perpetrators and their collaborators, there is an urgent need to nip the menace in the bud. The recognition of this, according to her, prompted the workshop on “Examination Malpractice and its Consequences – The way forward” organised by the state government.
She appealed to private sector operators to join hands in the battle to kill the monster, saying that “I can’t imagine any educationist of good conscience, being happy to see his or her products who supposedly graduated with good grades never being able to pull through the university because they were never worth the certificate they possessed”.
