Examinations malpractice, WAEC’s major challenge — Registrar

The Registrar, West African Examinations Council, Dr. Iyi Uwadiae, says examination malpractice is one of the greatest challenges faced by the council as an examination body.
Uwadiae, who made the assertion at a News Agency of Nigeria forum in Lagos, said that examination malpractice had the tendency to mar the entire examination process or processes.
Uwadiae said: “Consider the fact that you start with the commissioning of item writers, moderation of the items, printing of the question papers and at the tail end, while administering the paper, perhaps just one of the question papers is stolen before the day of the examination.
“With this development the entire process involved in the production of the question paper for that subject or subjects as the case may be is gone.
“We would have to start all over again because of course WAEC does not compromise, so, if we confirm any leakage we cancel that examination because that is what gives rise to examination leakage which will later lead to malpractice, especially with modern day technology.”
The registrar added that if such development should occur 10 times over, WAEC will also be le left with no choice than to cancel the entire process 10 times over.
Uwadiae explained that the council’s question papers are equally taken to the five member states, adding that should there be a leakage in any of the countries, all others would be affected due to technology.
Uwadiae said that as far as the examination processes were concerned, the council would not take anything for granted.
According to him, the fact that something happened in a remote part of a local government in any state in the country, for example, is not enough to be taken for granted.
He noted that this is because with the social media, one is sure to get it to places as far as Sierra Leone or Ghana and others.
He added that the development had been a major challenge to the conduct of
the council’s examinations but reassured that the council was, however, deploying various technologies to ensure it was a step ahead.
Uwadiae said it was as a result of cutting-edge technology that the council had been able to conduct hitch-free examinations in recent times.
He said: “I will like to say that for some years now, I am glad to announce that we have not had any examination leakage.
“The last we had in Nigeria was in April 2008 and that was the last leakage we had in the country and we were also able to trace the source.
“It was traced to where the questions papers were produced and the case was reported to the police and arrests made.”