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Stakeholders, others seek JAMB support to check exam malpractice

By Eniola Daniel
17 October 2019   |   3:08 am
Computer Based Test Centre Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (CPAN) has called on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to ensure better remuneration for CBT centres as they seek close ties with the operators in curbing examination malpractice.

Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) office

Computer Based Test Centre Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (CPAN) has called on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to ensure better remuneration for CBT centres as they seek close ties with the operators in curbing examination malpractice.

The group made the call at its 4th national conference held at the 68 Nigeria Army reference hospital mess, Yaba, Lagos.

National president of the association, Maxwell Akwuruoha, said, “There has been a serious concern for JAMB to sit down with proprietors and get to hear the challenges they face. All we have over the years is JAMB organising what it called stakeholders’ meetings where it gives instructions without listening adequately to the proprietors. Sometimes, questions will be picked randomly and you would not know who would be picked and at the end of the day, nothing comes out.

“CPAN as an association has tried its best to harmonise all opinions and presented them to JAMB. Now we are taking it to the minister of education. It is not about JAMB, it’s about the education sector, and what technology is doing in it. Recently we had looked at the decree to establish where CPAN should be represented in that board.

On the argument that the current registrar of the examination body, Prof Ishaq Oloyede is more concerned with revenue generation instead of providing solutions to the problems on ground, Akwuruoha said the registrar has been operating on the standard he met. But one thing the registrar has not done is to listen closely and also consider the concerns of centres. The N700 payment per candidate since 2013 to these centres is overdue and is not sustaining the investment put in place by owners.

“You will look at exam malpractices from three areas; the space the students are struggling to study are limited. In 2019, 1.9 million candidates sat for the examination while the space is not more than 900,000. Even if all the students perform very well, one million must stay back and apply for next year so that brings pressure upon the whole system.

“The innovation of trying to test these students electronically also comes with the need for the candidates to acquire e-testing skills which most of them lack. A student moving from junior secondary three to senior class may not be able to spend up to an hour with the computer.”

Dean, School of Technology, Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), Dr. Okolie Peter said, “We have technological challenges that are glaring but while we look at those challenges, we must also be ready to proffer solutions, and those solutions are not far-fetched because they are in business so, they need to be proactive so that they would be able to move along with technology.

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