Proprietor Decries Exam Malpractice

The Director, Good Shepherd Schools, Meiran, Lagos State, South West Nigeria, Dr. Adebayo Oyeyemi has decried the high rate of examination malpractice in schools in the country and called for a concerted effort to fight the malaise.

Oyeyemi spoke at the 6th Inter-House Sports of the school held at the Model College, Meiran at the weekend. He lamented the implications of examination malpractice and called on well meaning Nigerians to join him in the crusade to stop it.

According to him, if any student was caught cheating in his school or a teacher caught aiding and abetting students to carry out such act, such student(s) would be expelled from the school and the teacher sacked immediately.

“Examination malpractice is a cancerous problem and I fight it in my schools. We want others to join hands with us to fight it.  If a child scored 280 marks without cheating and another scored 300 marks through cheating and you place the one who cheated above the one who did not cheat, we do badly.

“It is sad that we are doing nothing to curb examination malpractice. This will surely affect the children in the future. If you allow those not qualified to reach the pinnacle, productivity will be affected,” he stated.

On the sacking of some private school teachers who refused to aid and abet students to cheat during external examinations, Oyeyemi, a former lecturer asked: “When a teacher is fired, who will protect the children? The press needs to bring such cases to the open.  The press should join us in this crusade.”

“In my school, our motto is qualitative education without corruption.  Some people engage in examination malpractice just because of the quest to make money but this is not the best.

“Just like sanity was brought to the banking system, such sanity should be brought to the education system.  It can be done in schools.  If you remove examination malpractice, children will read.

“Parents don’t know the effect examination malpractice will have on their children. If they knew, they will not aide and abet them in such an act. If a child fails, what is wrong in telling such a child to repeat?

—Kazeem Ugbodaga