4th May, 2012
Director, Lagos State Examinations Board, Mrs. Modupe Coker, on Thursday said that 37, 000 pupils from the state failed the junior basic secondary certificate examinations in 2011.
Coker, who disclosed this in interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), lamented that many of the pupils who sat for the examination failed because they did not know how to shade their answer sheets properly.
She said that some pupils failed to shade the provided spaces for school, examination and subject codes appropriately and the scanner machine used for marking the answer sheets would not be able to identify such light shading.
“We have a lot of failure in 2011, about 37,000 pupils failed because of this problem. We cannot identify many answer scripts and this is not helping the system.
“A child might be brilliant but if he or she fails to do the right thing, then the pupil automatically fails,“ she added.
Coker also identified the influx of students from other states as one of the challenges facing the board, saying that this was seriously putting pressure on the available infrastructure in the state schools.
She opined that if the transfer of students from other states could be stopped, then pupils in the state public schools would have adequate infrastructure as planned by the government.
“The government put infrastructure in place all the time in our schools. Although it may not be 100 percent, but better than what you can get elsewhere.
Coker commended the private school owners in the state for assisting the government in improving the sector but appealed that they desist from engaging in examination malpractice.
She added that any school found aiding or abeting the act would have its result withheld.
“We will always get them, as we have always done. We have a scanner machine that can detect any fraudulent act during the junior basic examination certificate.
“I have warned them to desist from cheating or helping their pupils during examination. The machine we have now can discover any copied or adult interference in the answer sheets, “she said.
Coker said that government has put in place inspectors, monitoring and quality assurance officers who would move around all schools during the examinations to ensure perfection.
NAN reports that the 2012 junior basic secondary certificate examination would begin on May 8.