Examination misconduct and malpractices, money- for- marks and admissions fraud are major signposts of educational institutions at all levels in Nigeria today.
Tutorial and continuing education centers are also important aspects of education in this clime, even though beneficiaries find it extremely difficult to exhibit the real value for the monetary inputs into these establishments.
Parents, guardians, teachers and officials of educational institutions in the public and private sectors share in the blame for the worrisome development.
In this interview, the Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke says that government created the enabling environment for the evils to fester in the country’s education sector. Excerpts :
Examination misconduct and malpractices, money- for- marks and admissions fraud are major characteristics of our educational system, why is this so ?
The problem of examination misconduct and malpractices, money- for- marks and admissions fraud are foundations to the evil practice of ‘’yahoo yahoo’’, perjury, forgery and kleptocracy in government and general institutional indiscipline as well as corruption. These fall outs emanated as Nigeria descended from the era of discipline to that of impunity.
Houses of God collapsed from a state of sacredness and piety to that of profanity and idolatry.
The home values of good parenting and marriage sacredness collapsed into that of abuse and child abandonment, wherein parents are no more responsively responsible to offer good care to the children and adolescent nature nurturing. This has left us to the mercy of producing poorly groomed adults, adult turned pedophiles and rapists, with biological father-ism without assumptions of social responsibility.
This poor state of society has led to a situation where all other agents of socialization violate ethical principles of operations, leaving the children at the mercy of various value bastardization into a non-productive venture.
The lack of role models making the growing child vulnerable and susceptible to various environmental hazards that weaken them into having no confidence in themselves, despite the nearly perfect educational system in place, with the Parents/Teachers for child close contact.
With regards to the Local Inspectorate of Education and the Ministry of Education together with some parastatals saddled with responsibility of managing quality and standard, some parents and guardians engage in money-for-marks for their wards with
the teachers lack of morale boosting initiatives from government serving as a catalyst. This could be seen in the delay in the payment of their salaries and poor working conditions, which has given room to admissions fraud and examination misconduct or malpractices.
If there is no enabling environment for fraud as created by government and its officials, Ministries, Departments and Agencies, education managers would not have gone that so low to aid and abet such in education because education revolves on quality and standard, the quality of the graduate and the future management of the economy of the nation.
The bottom line is to identify the weak areas for possible and timely amends to be made and to fix the areas of lapses through adequate monitoring and funding for the purpose of updating teachers’competence through appropriate capacity building that is Information and Communication Technology(ICT) based to influence our products towards global market competitiveness.
It is equally important that the Service Compact(SERVICOM) and the The Anti- Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) as establihed in institutions of learning must cut across Primary, Secondary and Tertiary institutions to promote and maintain sanity in the system.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) must network with them effectively to curb the menace of ‘’yahoo yahoo’’ syndrome and abuse of various privileges and offices.
The culture of firmness and objectivity to manage ethics must be the yardstick in establishing an era of deterrence.
The fear of doing the wrong thing would certainly be the beginning of knowledge and wisdom because issue driven admonition is expected to checkmate further perpetration of abuses.
Above all, the blame for the present lapses rests solely on every stakeholder in education. There is therefore a dire need for Nigeria to restructure in this area through re branding to be able to inject the spirit of competition in our children and the youth, and hard work as a bedrock for productivity resourcefulness, in order that we are able to give Nigeria a better future among the comity of nations.
Let us be practical in a sincere way, with the slogan of the National Youth Council of Nigeria that we must build the youth to build the nation.
Nigeria, Examinations, fraud,
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