Parents have been identified as being central in their children’s involvement in examination malpractice, especially by sending them to “miracle centres” by providing financial support and materials that will aid them in getting their desired results. This report explores the role parents play.
“We have over 600 students going to Senior Secondary School III (SS3), but by the end of the year, we will have only about 200 who will register for the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) in the school,” said a teacher in a Government Secondary School (GSS) in Abuja.
The teacher, who does not want to be named, explained that about 400 of the students would be scattered in other schools around Mararaba, Nasarawa State, where the schools are popular for performing “miracles.”
He said most students trooped to the miracle centres to register for the West African Examination Council (WAEC) or the National Examination Council (NECO).
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He noted that since many of his ex-students had done that in the past, this year was not likely to be different, saying provided they had the backing of their parents and guardians who would not mind paying additional money for registration and other charges.
He said most of the miracle centres were private schools located in areas away from cities.
“Such schools accept many students to come and register with them while giving them the assurance that they would clear their papers in one sitting,” he said.
Daily Trust Saturday reports that SSCE result is the evidence that someone has completed his/her senior secondary education, and which is the requirement for one to secure admission into higher institutions, and can also serve as a requirement to secure employment or contest for political office.
Therefore, due to the importance placed on the SSCE, many students use illegal means to ensure that they secure at least five credits in subjects, including English Language and mathematics.
Many of the students get involved in examination malpractice by bringing in foreign materials, copying from colleagues, teachers providing answers, and in most cases friends or relatives write for the students.
Following the efforts of the examination bodies and the federal government in bringing down the rate of examination malpractice, many students, with the help of their parents, now flock to the miracle centres.
Students who got results from miracle centres speak
A student simply called Yusuf who wrote WAEC in one of such schools in Mararaba said he was initially in a government school in Nyanya, Abuja, but decided to write it a private school.
Yusuf, who said he was told by his friends about the miracle centre, explained that the school collected extra cash for registration.
He said, “They add about N10,000 to N15,000, and after payment they give you a date to come for documentation and wait for examination day.”
On what happens on the examination day, he said, “The school permits you to do anything such as take in your textbook and copy and get help from teachers.”
On supervisors, he said when they were around the students played along and were careful so that they don’t get caught.
He said he cleared his papers in one sitting; noting that it was worth the risk he took considering the distance of the school and the transportation he had to spend in going to and fro.
On his parents’ role, Yusuf said he explained to them before registering for the examination.
He said, “My parents supported me with money and provided the transportation I used and I cleared my papers in one sitting.”
Another candidate who wants to be addressed as Helen said she wrote SSCE in a “special centre’ in Kaduna State.
Helen said, “I paid N70,000 because I was not their student and they assured me that I had nothing to worry about; that they would help me get good results; and they did, though I had to spend extra cash on teachers who assisted me during the examination. They wrote almost all the papers for me.”
She explained that after her first attempt in SSCE she failed most of the papers, and that a neighbour told her mother to go to “that school and she will be assisted by the school.”
She further said, “My mum then called my dad who is in Abuja to get him to raise the money for me. That was how they paid for me and I got the WAEC result that I am using now.”
Parent blames government, system
A parent who does not want to be named said the government should be blamed for providing poor quality education in government schools.
He said, “Every parent now runs to private schools because that is where they get what they want. When you see other children coming out with good grades and those in government schools with poor or average grades, it means you have to struggle for money for the child to go the private schools.”
He noted that he was not justifying examination malpractice but was in support of people going to where they could get the required results.
He further said, “This country is hard; many can hardly feed and pay fees. So, don’t blame parents who put everything into getting the needed results. Instead, you should blame the government that failed to fund education properly and provide quality education.”
Teachers blame parents, government
A teacher, identified simply as Mary, said most parents were not helping their children because many removed them from government schools and moved them to private schools and paid extra money for the schools to give them “expo” to support them to write examinations.
Mary, who is a government school teacher in Lagos State, said most of the parents knew that their children were not intelligent and that they wanted them to get results, which she noted they might not be able to defend later.
She further said, “In my school, some students also encourage their parents to get them an expo so that when the exam comes it is either someone writes for them or they pay people to bring the expo to them to pass.”
While noting that some parents came to the school to give teachers money, she said, “When I started this job, a boy in my SS2 class brought both parents to me because they wanted his results changed. I told them I could not change the results because I did not teach all the subjects and that if I changed a subject it could cause problems for me.
“The parents went to another teacher in the school and they got what they wanted.”
She added that, “The government queries teachers if students fail, and there is nothing the teachers can do because it is the government that pays them. So, the teachers look for ways to give the students marks so that they can be promoted to another class.
“So, what are we going to do? Parents don’t like us, the government doesn’t like us, and we need to provide for ourselves. That is the reason you see many teachers go out of their way to give the parents and the government what they want.”
She further said that some schools went as far as collaborating with parents to meet examination bodies to change results.
While noting that some parents didn’t see anything wrong with malpractice, she said, “Even when you cannot do it, they will go to another person until they get to where they will get what they want.”
Meanwhile, some parents said that during their time there was nothing like malpractice; that they read to pass exams.
A parent said, “As a professional, I am not in support of that at all. I have children and told them they have to read to pass their exams. My last child came home after writing WAEC and he was supposed to read for NECO but he didn’t. The father punished him and he had to sit down and read. Now the result is out and he got good grades.”
An administrator in Caleb Group of Schools, Lagos, Sola Adeola, said parents played a pivotal role in pushing their children to miracle centres by providing financial support, encouragement, and even resorting to unethical means to undermine the importance of genuine learning.
A Global Teacher Prize finalist, Olasunkanmi Opeifa, said parents were the architect of it all.
Opeifa said, “Many patronise miracle centres partly out of ignorance and partly out of fear of failure. None of these is strong enough as an excuse.
“It’s important to note that children may insist on not sitting for their exams in their regular schools. However, parents owe them the moral responsibility to ensure they are adequately prepared for the exams. Parents have the financial responsibility. Hence, it largely depends on them.”
Implication of miracle centres – Experts
The existence and patronage of miracle centres no doubt cast aspersion on the efforts by both the government and parents in giving quality education to students and invariably show low quality of those who are likely to be admitted into higher institutions.
For Opeifa, the decadence has eaten so deep that the obvious repercussion of examination malpractice seems not to exist anymore.
He said, “Many of these students that patronise miracle centres now have fantastic results. You tend to wonder what happens at the marking centres these days. “Miracle centres make students lose their results. When caught, results of such centres can be withheld or cancelled.”
While noting that students that patronised miracle centres could never be confident to defend the results, he said such students might become victims of repeated UTME, and that if they escaped that, might not be able to cope with academic tension/pressure in higher institutions and might resort to other means of cutting corners.
“Innocent students that simply want to write their exams may face the same consequences of loss of results or cancelled results as a result of discovered exam malpractice.”
He further said, “There is this cerebral skill that comes with knowledge acquisition and knowledge use practically or theoretically. It has a mix of critical thinking, creativity, communicative skills, adaptability, etc. A student who gets assisted with exams automatically has been robbed of the opportunity of enjoying this.”
Another educationist, Adeola, said that the implications of miracle centres on academic performance were obvious as students who relied on miracle centres might lack confidence in their abilities, possess incomplete knowledge and struggle to handle failure since they didn’t earn their achievements.
The 2020 Maltina Teacher of the Year winner, Oluwabunmi Anani, said that with the miracle centres, the vicious cycle of corruption in the larger society worsened and never appeared to dwindle.
She noted that as a result of this, teachers, even the dedicated ones, struggled to keep up their self-motivation; saying, “Well, intentioned teachers are forced to compromise at some point when their resistance has been pushed to the very limit, having transferred their services for the umpteenth time owing to pressure from school owners to dance with the flow of examination malpractice.
“Students who insist on examination malpractice become agents of corruption, dysfunctional system, mass destruction of lives and property, negative deviants, scoffers of due process and promoters of an already fallen standard of education. You can imagine what these kinds of students would do when they become medical doctors, nurses or public office holders!”
WAEC’s position
WAEC has over time banned schools that are found wanting and also arrested individuals involved in malpractice, with many being paraded by the police.
WAEC explained that it did not recognise any school as a special centre or miracle centre, noting that any school involved in malpractice such as writing answers on board for students and bringing in foreign materials would be penalised.
It said the council would present such a case to its examination committee, where appropriate sanctions would be agreed, noting that some schools got banned for two to five years.
In the case of an individual involved, WAEC said the person might be banned from writing the examination for some period.
The Head of Nigeria National Office of WAEC, Patrick Areghan, earlier disclosed that rogue site operators and about 15 others comprising students, school proprietors and teachers were apprehended over their involvement in examination malpractice in the recently concluded 2023 May/June SSCE.
The WAEC boss maintained that they had technology in place to detect any form of malfeasance in respect to posting fake examination question papers, noting that the tech was able to identify and track sites.
He noted that the major people giving the council problems were supervisors, saying they were deeply involved and made huge amounts of money from students and parents.
While also noting that the supervisors were being given to them by the Ministry of Education as trusted hands, he said considering WAEC’s staff strength of 2,000, they could not mark all the examinations, hence the involvement of the supervisors.
He appealed to parents, teachers, supervisors and candidates to desist from looking for expo and maintain the good ethics of exams.
On likely involvement of the council’s staff, he said, “It is impossible for any WAEC official to be involved in the process, and anyone that is found involved will definitely leave the system.”
Way forward
Despite efforts by the government and examination bodies to clamp down on miracle centres, many schools continue to adopt the illegal methods and enjoy the patronage of people from different social classes.
Opeifa said the miracle centres were regular schools and that they could be traced if the exam bodies were serious.
He said, “Truth be told, WAEC and NECO should not feign complete ignorance of these centres. A school that cannot boast of 200 students in the entire population now presents over 200 for SSCE. Wouldn’t you question the root of that miracle?”
He lamented that the amount allotted to rewarding reporting of exam malpractice was too woeful, not to talk about the ignoble treatment of any “unfortunate” examiner that dared step forward.
He further said, “You will be questioned like the main criminal just to earn something around N300 per centre for reporting. This is not without the rigours of retrieving your scripts after you have submitted. I believe examiners are ready to help but the exam bodies must make this easy.
“Our curricula and syllabi need to be worked on. Then, the type of questions set also needs to be revisited. It’s difficult to cheat with serious application questions. There are questions you will set and the students will need to think outside the box even with textbooks opened. This happens in Literature-in-English. Hence, it is easier to discover cheating.”
To address the menace of miracle centres, Adeola said a combination of measures was necessary.
She said, “Educational institutions, parents, and society at large need to collectively promote ethical behaviour and genuine academic growth.”
She noted that society should not pay lip service to corrupt practices, saying examination bodies should sanitise their own systems of unpatriotic elements who were the first agents of examination malpractice via leaked question papers and prepared answers.
She added that supervisors that had proven integrity should be assigned roles of external invigilators and that the bodies should provide reliable security for the invigilators against attacks by organised hoodlums from “within”.
She further said that clerics should not sweep the matter under the carpet; that they should make it the theme of their sermons in big gatherings and special celebrations where families were present.
