By TAIWO OGUNMOLA-OMILANI
Some parents in Lagos State are alleging high level examination malpractices in the April 8, 2017 National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) in the state, saying the result of the exercise cannot stand integrity test.
Accusing some of them (parents) of conniving with certain supervisors and invigilators to compromise the standard of the examination, they alleged that some invigilators were paid as much as N50,000 each to provide the children whose parents bribed them with answers to the exam questions.
One of the parents, who is also a lawyer, Mr. Bello Kazeem Adesina said his son Tofunmi Bello sat for the examination at the State high school, Oyewole road, Agege and he witnessed the anomaly. He said: “One of the parents drew my attention to what some of the parents did. Invigilators and parents connived to engage in examination malpractices and I went round myself to observe it and I found out that it was true. They gave one of the invigilators question paper and he went out to supply answers and bring back to the parents that gave them N50,000 each.
“The parents that gave money were tagged special parents. They had three papers before the break, so I went to the police station but they could not do anything, so I went back to the school to meet with Mrs. Fawole, the principal to tell her. From what I gathered, they have been helping children to do their examination in that centre. The woman started begging me and begged me not to make an arrest. Almost all the students who wrote the examination knew what happened. Some of them came out and started crying that they were dictating to their colleagues. Even my own son told me the same thing.”
The Lagos lawyer said all hands must be on deck to curtail the malpractices initiated by parents during public examinations.
Another parent, Mrs. Oni Faad who spoke in Yoruba Language in a telephone interview confirmed that some parents paid a sum of N50,000 to supervisors to supply answers to their pupils.
According to her, they collected the question papers of the students that their parents paid and went out to supply answers and bring them in. She added: “Afterward, my own child came out and started crying because of what he saw in the examination hall. I encouraged him and told him not to pay attention to others they were supplying answers to.
“It was a male supervisor that did that dirty job; I assured my son that they are destroying the lives of the students they were dictating answers to because it would have negative impact in their future.
“After they rounded off paper one, my child told me that those they assisted at the beginning of the exam could not write anything while writing other exams.
“We later heard that parents paid N50,000 to get answers for their children. This is not good enough because they are destroying the lives of the children.”
Another parent, who gave his name as Mr. Adenekan Abideen also confirmed that parents bribed some supervisors. “The exams were divided into segments. Paper 1 comprises Mathematics, General Science, English and Social Studies while part two consists of Vocational, Quantitative and Verbal. After the children had gone in for the exam, I was sitting with a parent who told me that a mother said she paid a sum of N50,000 to some of the teachers in order to supply answers but I did not respond.
“After the paper, some of the children told their parents what happened in the examination hall that some of the invigilators collected money from the parents. A parent actually confirmed to me that he caught some teachers solving the question paper in one of the classrooms.
“That particular parent went to the police station and the officer he met said he should bring money before he could follow him. The man went back in annoyance”, he said.
Abideen described the development as unfortunate, saying it was not good for the future of the children and the country. “Exposing your child to examination malpractices at this stage means this country doesn’t have a future. Those involved in the malpractices must not go scot free. If we are running away from this, it shows we are not helping matters”, he said.
When LEADERSHIP contacted the public relations officer of NECO, Mr. Azeez Sani, he denied such any such malpractice took place during the exam, saying the parents making the allegation should produce evidence to that effect.
“It is easy for people to make allegations. If they have concrete evidence to show then we will know who to hold. I knew the exam was well monitored by our men. We should have concrete evidence that will assist us in this matter”, he stated.