The West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) has suspended 13 Senior Secondary Schools in Gombe State for four years over examination malpractices.
Consequently, all the Schools were fined N500,000.00 each for committing the offence.
Alhaji Ali Yaya, Director of Examination, Gombe State Ministry of Education, stated this during a recent meeting with all Principals of secondary schools in the State and management of the ministry.
He said the development was a major setback in the ministry’s effort to improve the education sector in the state.
He explained further that examination malpractice is currently the major challenge facing senior secondary schools in the state and warned that it must be addressed to avert more schools from being de-recognised by the examination body.
According to him, “From 2018 to 2020, seven of our public senior secondary schools were found to be involved in Exams Malpractice which led to their de-recognition by the WAEC”.
He added that “Similarly in 2022, the Ministry received a fresh set of six schools that committed the same offence and they were also de-recognised with a penalty of N500,000 fine per school payable to WAEC.”
He said the menace of examinations malpractice had impacted negatively on the overall students’ performance in the 2022 Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (SSCE) final results.
“The percentage of 2022 result was 55.6 per cent as against 79.5 per cent for 2021 and this is in connection with the examination malpractice recorded in six of our schools”, he revealed.
Yaya, therefore, stated that in view of the situation, the Examination Directorate of the Ministry had issued a warning to all principals in all schools to stay away from examination malpractice of any form.
“Any principal found wanting again in any form of Exams Malpractice will be seriously punished and the penalty should be paid by the school”, he opined.
Efforts by correspondents through visits to the office of Dr Aishatu Maigari, the Gombe State Commissioner for Education to get the state government’s reaction on how it intends to address the matter, were abortive as she was said to have been away.
When calls were made to her, she neither picked up the calls nor responded to text messages made to her phone.
[DailyIndependent]
