From today, ROTIMI LAWRENCE OYEKANMI examines how some parastatals under the Federal Ministry of Education faredin providing the services they were mandated to during the yearBetween candidates and JAMB's abracadabraTHE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is no stranger to controversies. But the battle of relevance and credibility it faced this year has been extra-ordinary.The board is bitter about the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination screening, which Universities are not willing to give up. At a Senate committee hearing some months ago, the board's Registrar, Prof Dibu Ojerinde insisted that the Universities were going beyond their brief with the way the post UTME screening was being organized. He also complained of exploitation and argued for a halt in the practice. He gave assurances about the credibility of JAMB examinations.But Vice Chancellors of especially Federal Universities were not impressed. While some have been diplomatic in their criticisms of the board, others have been quite blunt about their reservations. 'JAMB is no longer relevant' has become their familiar refrain.However, this year's UTME was especially fraught with many problems. In a country where electricity is epileptic and access to computers is still very low, JAMB tasked hapless candidates to register online with their biometric details. The banks were the first to cash in on this by hoarding the forms and creating artificial scarcity. Some unscrupulous bank officials then offered to assist the candidates upload their details for fees ranging from N5,000 to N7,500.Local cybercafs soon followed suit. Candidates had to pay between N6,000 and N7,000 just to purchase scratch cards, register and upload their details online. Within the twinkle of an eye, some traders of JAMB scratch cards had emerged. What ought to have passed for a simple process suddenly became big business. The pretence of wanting to conduct a flawless examination devoid of malpractice was, according to critics, a ploy to make some traders and civil servants overnight millionaires at the candidates' expense.Ojerinde was later to express outrage, but angry parents dismissed his views. By March ending, it had been certain that this year's UTME, would be problematic. As expected, it was. Across the southwest, many centres could not take delivery of the writing materials JAMB had promised on the examination day. The laptops that were to 'detect' cheats through biometric screening did not function. Where some did, there was no electricity to replenish their batteries. In desperation, many supervisors resorted to manual methods, and students were allowed to quickly purchase writing materials from local traders nearby. In the end, as is always the case, nobody in JAMB accounted for the unacceptable negligence. No sanction was imposed on the company that could not deliver examination materials to candidates. Results were released 'within 72 hours' with fanfare, and the beat goes on.WAEC's big embarrassmentTHE West African Examination Council has maintained a strong reputation for many years and its certificates are trusted all over the world. But in recent years, this credibility has repeatedly been questioned, no thanks to the examination malpractice quagmire.But nothing compares to the embarrassment the examination body suffered last September over the May/June WASSCE result. The council had, on August 10, released the results which were also posted on its website www.waecdirect.org. But some results were still pending. According to a statement by the council, an effort to update the resulted led to the alteration of the already released ones, leading to an outrage. So serious was the matter that the Federal Ministry of Education had to invite the council's Head of National Office, Dr Iyi Uwadiae to a joint press briefing in Abuja to allay stakeholders' fears.Alarmed by the development, WAEC embarked on a cleansing mission in-house. The Guardian was informed that the staff members who were identified to have committed the error were sacked, even though there were believed to be brilliant and experienced. 'They made a honest mistake over the matter,' one WAEC senior official told The Guardian. 'It was clear that they made a mistake, but you see, you don't make a mistake of such magnitude and expect to get away with it. Something had to be done, therefore, these staff had to be fired, but it was unfortunate.'But that was not the first time that allegations of fraud had been leveled against WAEC staff. A couple of years ago, question papers of some subjects, including the English Language, were reportedly leaked during the November/December Senior School Certificate Examination. The council later called a press briefing, announcing that some hoodlums were apprehended in Lagos producing fake WAEC certificates and questions papers.Besides, the council has been unpopular with the way it withholds results. Candidates have been made to suffer on account of withheld results due to prolonged investigation on allegations leveled against them. Some critics have also accused WAEC of punishing many candidates for the sins of a few, by cancelling the results of an entire centre over malpractice perpetrated by only a handful.But WAEC has been fighting back. It has reported its findings on how candidates use cell phones to cheat during examinations. It has also frowned against the admission of external candidates by some principals for the May/June WASSCE.Yet, one thing is clear: the rate of failure in WASSCE is still high. So is examination malpractice.NECO's JSCE results and other mattersASK any head teacher of a private or public secondary school about his or her opinion on the National Examinations Council's (NECO) performance in 2011, and what you are likely to get is a prolonged hiss.This should not be surprising. The examination body that was created via a decree in 1999 to solve the problems associated with administering the Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) has, in fact, brought more problems to the table. It has become more popular with the scratch card and biometric business than conducting credible examinations. On any of the search engines on the World Wide Web, two sites answer your call when you type in the word 'NECO.' One site, which still has an archive of NECO's history, but was last updated in 2005, still has Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, its pioneer chief executive officer, who had since moved to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), as its current chief executive. The other site proudly announces: 'Welcome to NECO online result checker.'It is common knowledge that many tertiary institutions do not take NECO results seriously. Many secondary schools don't reckon with them too. If the schools present candidates for NECO's SSCE or Junior School Certificate Examination (JSCE), they are doing so just to obey official regulations but certainly not by choice. Some Universities, as a rule, do not accept its SSCE results, but they are not saying so openly. On many occasions, apprehensive candidates seeking admission to the Universities had called The Guardian to find out if NECO results had been outlawed. When they are told the truth, they then say: 'but the University I applied to says it is not accepting my NECO result.'When the results of the last Junior Secondary Certificate Examination (JSCE) were released, one trend was noticed: a large number of candidates had the same scores in all subjects. Students either scored C in 12 subjects, or D in 10. Not only that, even at the Senior School Certificate level (SSCE), the results released over the years have been questionable: it's either a large percentage of candidates passed or failed.Filled with indignation over the JSCE results last September, some head teachers of private schools who spoke to The Guardian, wondered if the Federal Ministry of Education understood the import of NECO's 'comedy.'However, NECO's Registrar, Prof. Promise Okpala, insisted in an interview with The Guardian in Minna, Niger state last September, that the examination body's credibility was still intact. According to him, unlike what happened in the past when sensitive examination materials were stored in many locations, he made sure that such materials were stored in one place. This, he asserted, had reduced the chances of leakages. He also spoke of putting a system, that 'eliminated' examination malpractice in place. This entailed the use of 'highly customized answer scripts which made it impossible for candidates to smuggle worked answer scripts into the examination hall.
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