The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) said it recorded a total of 9,804 cases of malpractice in its May/June edition of the school-based West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in Lagos State in 2018.

The figure, with 8,054 students involved, represented 4.97 per cent of the total 162,067 candidates who sat the examination across Lagos schools.

The deputy registrar and Lagos zonal coordinator of WAEC, Mr Idowu Ojo, disclosed this as a guest speaker at a workshop on examination ethics, organised by the Lagos State Ministry of Education recently.

He spoke on ‘Effects and Solutions of Examination Malpractice in the Society’.

He noted that collusion as one of the types of examination malpractices (a situation whereby a candidate is caught passing or receiving note or prohibited information to or from other candidate(s) was the highest, followed by sneaking banned items into the examination halls.

Mr Ojo said examination malpractice, not only in Lagos State but across the federation, is still a serious issue that needs to be holistically approached and tackled by all stakeholders in the interest of quality education and economy.

Giving statistics of malpractice cases in the same edition of the examination in the state in 2016 and 2017 to be 7,017 (representing 3.63 per cent of total 154,432) and 6,387 (representing 3.88 per cent of total 145,580 candidates) who sat the examination respectively, he said cases of malpractice was more pronounced during the private candidates’ edition in October/November.

“We recorded as high as 9,022 cases (representing 11.04 per cent) from a total of 58,886 candidates who sat the 2017 October/November edition, and 11.59 per cent and 3.55 per cent out of 100,701 and 78,908 candidates who sat the same edition in 2015 and 2016, respectively in the state,” he stressed.

Ojo, however, noted that the figures recorded in Lagos State during the periods under review and almost all times were actually one of the lowest three among states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

While noting that WAEC has a zero tolerance for malpractice as the examination body comes up with various new measures to curtail the practice each year, he accused parents, supervisors, invigilators, school principals, especially in private schools, of aiding examination malpractice in various forms.

He also blamed the practice on over-reliance, especially by schools and employers of labour, on paper qualifications for admission and employment respectively rather than on the candidates’ knowledge and skills suitable for the tasks ahead.

He, therefore, called on government and every other stakeholder in the sector to join hands in the fight against examination malpractice at all levels in the country.