The National Examinations Council (NECO) has urged the federal government to formulate a deliberate policy aimed at promoting discipline and a culture of honesty among teachers, school administrators and students.
Also, it revealed that the menace of examination malpractice continues to hunt public examinations across the country, with NECO recording over 40,000 cases in its June/July 2019 Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, SSCE.
Acting Registrar of NECO, Mr Abubakar Gana, who stated this in a brief submitted to the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, on the mandate and achievements of the Council between May 2018 and September 2019, further called on the government to prioritise security of examinations just as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is provided security during elections.
He said incessant cases of examination malpractice especially impersonation and particularly collusion by supervisors, teachers and school administrators, who ought to be part of the army in fighting the scourge, was a major challenge in the conduct of the exercise.
Although NECO acquired 8,000 biometric verification machines before its conduct of the 2019 SSCE, the Registrar said the exam body requires more biometric verification devices to serve its over 16,000 centres and enable it to strengthen its efforts towards eliminating identity theft, which is the severest form of examination malpractice.