WAEC Arrests Proprietor, Supervisors For Exam Malpractice

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has identified 56 rogue website operators that leaked its West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) in the ongoing 2023 May/June Examination.

The Head of National Office, Nigeria (HNO) Mr Patrick Areghan, made this known on Thursday in Abuja while monitoring of the examination in some Government Secondary Schools.

Areghan said that the identified rogue website operators would be prosecuted by the police in due course.

According to him, some dubious supervisors are responsible for some of these malpractices during examinations.

Areghan said the arrest was made in Maiduguri, Ibadan, Abeokuta and Umuahia and that suspects will be handed to police and will be paraded at national televisions.

He said a total of 1,621,895 candidates registered for the examination but there are possibility of all not sitting for the examination.

The WAEC boss maintained that the major people giving the council problem are the supervisors, saying, they were deeply involved in examination malpractice and made huge amount of money from students and parents.

While noting that the supervisors were being given provided by the Ministry of Education as trusted hands, he said considerating WAEC’s staff strength of 2000, they cannot mark all the examination and thus the involvement of supervisors.

He said the inspection was important because students sat for an important subject, Mathematics, on the Thursday.

He said, “We are not interested in failing students but interested in seeing them pass but the only thing is we cannot help them to pass, we only encourage them by telling them what to and not to do. We are talking to them to make sure they don’t involve in examination malpractice.

“We have arrested students. In Ibadan, we arrested a supervisor, candidates and other groups. In Maiduguri, supervisors and candidates were arrested, while in Abeokuta a school proprietor who started it (examination malpractice) from the beginning of the examination was arrested along others. In Osogbo, a candidate and supervisor and so many others in Umuahia too who are involved in the illegal act were arrested.

“We have gone further by identifying and arresting the rogue operators involved in malpractice unlike last year.”

Meanwhile, he advised the candidates to desist from the use of expo in examination, saying they are fake.

“Do not copy what your mate is writing because there is nothing that will make you write the same thing. If you rely on cheating that means you have failed and we want you to pass,” he said.

The WAEC boss appealed to parents and candidates to desist from looking for expo.

He also noted that it is impossible for any WAEC officials to be involved in the process and that anyone that is found involved will definitely leave the system.

The Director Senior Secondary Education, Hajia Binta Abdulkadir, said she was saddened with the involvement of principals in examination malpractice which she described as the bane of education problem in Nigeria.

She expressed happiness over WAEC deployment of many technologies to tackle the situation.

Also, the principal of Government Secondary school Kubwa, Musa Zuru, commended the progress made by WAEC, saying that schools in FCT have zero tolerance for examination malpractice and urged other schools to key in.

Source : Daily Trust