Niger Delta
Exam Malpractice: Delta Dismisses Principal, De-recognizes School
The Delta State Government has sent very strong signals that it will not condone examination malpractices as the State Executive Council yesterday announced the dismissal of a school principal, a teacher and de-recognition of a secondary school for three years over various offences.
Briefing newsmen at the end of the council meeting at the Government Press Centre in Asaba, the State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Oma Djebah, said the measures were taken to send “strong and clear signals that the Delta State Government is determined to ensure moral uprightness and appropriate ethical conduct in educational institutions in the State.”
Speaking in company of the Commissioner for Education (Basic and Secondary), Mrs. Juliet Agoba, Djebah said Council arrived at the decision because the sanctions recommended by the Examinations and Ethics Disciplinary Committee in the Ministry were “too minor given the scale of misconduct established against the accused persons and instituion.”
The Committee had recommended that Mr. Pius Unumade (Principal 1, GL 14) of Uwangue Senior Secondary School, Warri be blacklisted from supervision of all certificate examinations and suspended from work for one month without pay. But the State Government converted the penalty to summary dismissal from service.
Unumade, as a supervisor in Creative Demonstration School, Warri, was accused of colluding with candidates who did not register for the October/November 2008 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations to write and submit scripts the day English Language was written.
In a similar vein, a school teacher, Mr. Tunde Alatare (Senior Master, GL 10) of Ezi Senior Secondary School, was alleged to have impersonated one Mr. Mohammed Jimoh Abubakar during the Mathematics Paper 1 of the November/December 2008 NECO Senior School Certificate Examination.
He was found guilty of the allegation and recommended for demotion but the State Executive Council increased the sanction to outright dismissal.
In the case of Uyeson College, Ughelli, the school was de-recognised for three years with effect from the 2008/09 academic session for an established offence of employing the services of a young man to write answers to mathematics questions on the chalkboard in the June/July NECO senior secondary school exams.