Commissioner charges WAEC to maintain standards

The Enugu State Commissioner for Education, Prof. Uche Eze, has urged the West Africa Examination Council to redouble efforts to improve on its falling standard.
Eze made the call in Enugu on Thursday when it received members of the Coal City Literary Foundation in his office.
The commissioner noted with dismay that the council which was highly rated was losing its credibility in recent years due to activities of some of its officials who connived with schools to lower standards.
He said: “WAEC is losing its credibility as its officials could no longer control examinations in the Sub region.
“The council is no longer what it used to be. WAEC ranking of schools seems to be political, which encourages abnormalities and destroys quality of education.’
On reading culture, Eze expressed concern that many youth did not read anymore because they had to sort their way to pass examinations.
He said: “School principals and parents are not helping matters because they also encourage examination malpractice.”
The commissioner noted that it was worse in private schools as you could not find students failing examinations because all of them were promoted.
Eze said that the government lacked strong legal instruments to tackle the menace noting that the existing laws guiding private schools was nothing to write home about.
He said: “Defaulters of government policy on private school ownership pay paltry sum of N200. This is appalling but efforts are underway to review the laws.”
He said that the government of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi had done a lot to provide enabling environment to enhance education in the state.
Eze commended the literary foundation for promoting reading culture in the state and urged it to extend its campaign to rural areas.
Earlier, the President of the CCLF, Dr Adaobi Nwoye, urged the government to beef up salaries of teachers in rural areas and motivated them to improve quality of education.
Nwoye said the foundation had set up reading clubs in some schools in the state and organised essay competitions to beef up their writing skills.
She solicited government support to enable the organisation reach out to more schools in the state.