The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, is lamenting the rate of examination malpractice among students, adding that students now drug invigilators using dangerous chemicals.
According to the council’s Registrar, Iyi Uwadiae, who spoke during a press briefing at WAEC International Centre, Lagos, proposed international summit on examination malpractices for October 19 and 20.
He said: “In some cases, and particularly during private examinations, candidates now go to centres fully armed with guns and other weapons. For the public examinations, there are centres, and especially private schools, where invigilators are drugged to pave way for them to engage in exam malpractices.”
He continued to say, ‘waging war against examination malpractices has become very expensive and more difficult, particularly with the advent of social media.
The most notorious challenge facing examining bodies and other educational institutions in WAEC member-countries is examination malpractice.
Currently, the malaise has assumed dangerous and criminal dimensions on the heels of some advancements in technology, which created the smartphones, social media, among others.
The council, in the five member countries, has introduced several measures, adopted various strategies and deployed technologies at great costs in the fight against the ever-festering menace. Misguided candidates and their adult collaborators, sometimes including school authorities, teachers, parents and, most recently, operators of rogue websites, have continued to devise ingenious and sophisticated methods of cheating, leading to an exponential increase in reported cases of fraud in public examinations’.
